Nordic Region
Paula Lehtomäki wants a new Nordic passport union and a clearer Nordic Council of Ministers
Nordic citizens should be able to use digital ID and use digital services in neighbouring countries, says the new Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers. She wants to continue delivering results that really benefit the region's citizens.
Nordic project: why do so few girls want to become engineers?
Many future jobs will be centred around digitalisation, the development of artificial intelligence and robots, and biotechnology. But far too few girls chose to study the subjects that are relevant to these areas. The Nordic labour ministers want to know why.
Outgoing Secretary General: keep the Nordic focus
The Nordic region and Nordic cooperation is held in high regard at home and abroad, so keep up the high levels of ambitions. That was the parting message for Nordic parliaments and governments from the Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers Dagfinn Høybråten, as he stepped down after six years today.
Gissur Pétursson, Permanent Secretary with thermometer and yardstick
Gissur Pétursson worked in the Icelandic Directorate of Labour for more than 20 years, but has moved on to become the top civil servant in the Ministry of Social Affairs and Children. The ministry has just changed to focus on four areas; children, housing, social insurance and the labour market.
Employers’ conditions in the shipping and aviation sectors provokes hot debate in the Nordic Council
The Nordic Council is encouraging governments to work actively against social dumping in the shipping sector. But the Council does not want to initiate any coordination of Nordic aviation policies within the EU. These were the results after a hot debate in the labour market committee during the session in Oslo.
Woman at the top in the Nordic Region
Paula Lehtomäki from Finland becomes the new Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers. She was appointed on 5 September by the Nordic cooperation ministers under the leadership of Sweden and Margot Wallström. Lehtomäki begins her job in March 2019.
Cooperating to stop a race to the bottom
Not everything is perfect, but the Nordics are doing some good things, getting down to business, highlighting problems, considering the measures, wanting to learn from others without erasing political divides. This is also the case when discussing labour market inclusion, #metoo and work-related crime. Broad cooperation aims to make sure things point in the right direction.
OECD: More flexibility needed to get female refugees into work
There is a need for more flexible measures to integrate newly arrived refugee women in the Nordic region, according to the OECD. Research shows that after years of fleeing, birth rates increase dramatically. When women feel safe, they have children – but that also makes it difficult for them to benefit from labour market introduction programmes.
The Nordic region – borderless yet clearly defined
Municipalities on Greenland as large as the whole of France. Five countries whose economies, if combined, would be the world’s twelfth largest. Cities where 62 percent of the labour force work in knowledge intensive businesses. The Nordic region is all of this.
How should trade unions handle #metoo?
The #metoo movement’s many appalling stories show that parallel to rules and regulations there has been culture of silence which has made sexual assaults and harassment possible. This is a challenge for trade unions on all levels, concluded Nordic trade union representatives at a meeting in Stockholm in February.
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