Employers lack knowledge and job seekers lack adequate language skills
Sweden's Minister for Employment Elisabeth Svantesson pointed out that Nordic people need more people on the labour market due to the developments of the population. However, she added that the skills and experience of people born abroad often go unused due to employers' lack of knowledge.
Language skills are the key to the labour market. Danish Deputy State Secretary Jesper Brask Fischer highlighted the three main areas that are currently in the spotlight in Denmark: language, renewal of the labour market and trade unions. "It's difficult to cope on the labour market without speaking Danish," he said. "So far, people have been entitled to three years of training, which has now been extended to five years."
Lowly educated young people who do not complete their studies are a challenge for Norway. "Boys drop out of school more often than girls," explained Norwegian Minister of Children, Equality and Integration Solveig Horne. "We have a three-year national education programme that encourages young people to study further. We focus mainly on boys born abroad or in Norway to ensure they make progress, e.g. with the support of education and traineeships."
Integration of immigrants
A recent study also concerns the shortage of labour, accepting refugees and reuniting families, and their impact on the development of the Scandinavian population. Open Scandinavian countries are facing large numbers of immigrants who need to adapt in their new society. The goal of the study was to ascertain why immigrants chose Scandinavia and to analyse how they participate in their new society. Denmark represents one extreme with its restricted migration policy, open Sweden is at the other end of the spectrum and Norway is somewhere in the middle.
Eastern and Central European workers
Another recent study focuses on the situation of Eastern and Central European labour migrants in the Nordic countries. Statistics indicate that more than 600,000 workers from Central and Eastern Europe have found their way onto the Nordic labour market in the last seven years. The study focusses on the behaviour patterns of foreign labour, social dumping and the role of employment agencies and governments in guaranteeing working conditions.
The study reveals that there is an inversely proportional connection between wages and working conditions – for example, salaries are highest in Oslo, but workers there also face more abuse. Employment agencies have become an important support unit for immigrants, which has made labour migration safer.
The study was coordinated by the Norwegian Fafo Institute for Labour and Social Research, whose representative Jon Horgen Friberg delivered a presentation at the high-level migration conference in Tallinn organised by the Nordic Council of Ministers' Office in Estonia and the University of Tartu in March this year. We are looking to continue with the Nordic-Baltic labour migration project in cooperation with our partners in the coming year.