Work permits: Denmark fails to add new job titles to list of in-demand professions
No new job titles have been added to Denmark's 'positive list' of in-demand professions eligible for work permits despite Danish authorities being given the power to add new ones in April.
The expansion of the positive list was part of the package of relaxed work permit rules that Denmark's parliament voted through in March and which came into force on April 1st.
Under the new rules, A-kasser unemployment funds and Denmark's Regional Labour Market Councils (RAR) gained the right to add new job titles to the list of professions requiring higher education that qualified for work permits.
But so far, neither of the two have taken advantage of this ability and added any new jobs to the list, a spokesman for SIRI, the Danish Agency for International Recruitment and Integration, said in a statement to The Local.
"We can inform you that neither the unemployment-insurance funds (A-kasser) nor Regional Labour Market Councils (RAR) have added any new jobs to the list since the expanded positive list came into force on April 1st, 2023," a spokesperson for the agency said.
Rikke Wolfsen, country manager for immigration at the business services firm EY, said called the delay in using the new powers "surprising", adding that her guess was that no companies had so far reported any missing positions.
Lack of new positions
The spokesperson for Siri said that the delay in adding any new job descriptions could partly be explained by the time table. Any new positions to be added to the list normally needed to be reported to Siri no later than 14 days before the list's biannual updates on April 1st and October 1st, with the new rule coming in to force too late for the April update.
She stressed, however, that it still would have been possible to add new job titles over the past four months if there had been an urgent need to hire overseas labour.
"It is possible to add supplementary job titles to the list on an ongoing basis if the mentioned unemployment-insurance funds (A-kasser) or the Regional Labour Market Councils (RAR) assess that there is an urgent shortage within the respective positions," she said.
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The expansion of the positive list was part of the package of relaxed work permit rules that Denmark's parliament voted through in March and which came into force on April 1st.
Under the new rules, A-kasser unemployment funds and Denmark's Regional Labour Market Councils (RAR) gained the right to add new job titles to the list of professions requiring higher education that qualified for work permits.
But so far, neither of the two have taken advantage of this ability and added any new jobs to the list, a spokesman for SIRI, the Danish Agency for International Recruitment and Integration, said in a statement to The Local.
"We can inform you that neither the unemployment-insurance funds (A-kasser) nor Regional Labour Market Councils (RAR) have added any new jobs to the list since the expanded positive list came into force on April 1st, 2023," a spokesperson for the agency said.
Rikke Wolfsen, country manager for immigration at the business services firm EY, said called the delay in using the new powers "surprising", adding that her guess was that no companies had so far reported any missing positions.
Lack of new positions
The spokesperson for Siri said that the delay in adding any new job descriptions could partly be explained by the time table. Any new positions to be added to the list normally needed to be reported to Siri no later than 14 days before the list's biannual updates on April 1st and October 1st, with the new rule coming in to force too late for the April update.
She stressed, however, that it still would have been possible to add new job titles over the past four months if there had been an urgent need to hire overseas labour.
"It is possible to add supplementary job titles to the list on an ongoing basis if the mentioned unemployment-insurance funds (A-kasser) or the Regional Labour Market Councils (RAR) assess that there is an urgent shortage within the respective positions," she said.
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