Employment
Articles on employment in chronological order.
ILO: No extra jobs for youths despite older workers’ retirement
Europe must handle rising youth unemployment as well as an ageing population. The fact that young people don’t step into jobs which are vacated might seem like a paradox, but this is what is happening according to the International Labour Organisation, which stages a major conference in Oslo between 8 and 11 April.
OECD: Norway’s welfare system needs reform to keep people with mental issues in work
Norway’s sickness benefit system allowing 100 percent compensation from day one is too generous. Financial incentives for all parties - employees and employers, unions, municipalities, schools and mental health care services - should help them take responsibility. That is the OECD’s message to Norway.
The Nordic role in Europe’s crisis
Participants at the conference ‘Nordic ways out of the crisis’ agreed the Nordic countries can play an important role in southern Europe’s current economic crisis. Yet just how the Nordic countries can work together and how much support there is for such work remains uncertain.
Editorial: Labour migrants head North
Iro came first. She arrived from Greece to study. Then the crisis hit, Iro found a job and stayed. Now her brother Dimitris has joined her to look for work in Norway. Do they represent a wave of job seekers from crisis-hit southern Europe to the Nordic region, we wonder in this month’s theme.
Nordic region next stop for the Portuguese?
Will the Nordic countries see an influx of labour form crisis-hit Mediterranean EU countries? Portugal’s emigration rose by 85 percent in 2011 and 240,000 Portuguese - two percent of the entire population - have emigrated in the past two years. In Switzerland they already make up the largest group of people born abroad. But are the Nordic countries equally tempting?
From Greek musical dream to Norwegian oil industry job
Iro loves music and wanted to learn how to build concert halls. So she moved from Thessaloniki to Trondheim to study acoustics. Meanwhile her home country was hit by a deep crisis. Now she is happy to have secured a job in the oil industry - and her brother Dimitris has joined her in Norway.
Doctors choose Sweden for work security and job satisfaction
Several Swedish embassies in southern European countries have seen a sharp increase in the number of people who are desperately seeking work. Meanwhile Swedish youths are wanted as guides by the tourism industry in Spain, Greece and Cyprus.
Spanish seek Icelandic jobs every day
Every day someone from Spain applies for a job in Iceland. Some Spanish travel there and go from workplace to workplace looking for jobs. Meanwhile, Portuguese who worked in Iceland before the financial crisis are getting back in touch with old employers to apply for work.
Anniken Huitfeldt: Minister of Labour with an eye for equality
”More people can do some work” says Anniken Huitfeldt when I meet Norway’s new Minister of Labour just as we enter 2013. There are parliamentary elections in September. So where will she make her mark in the next six months; where does she want to make a difference as Minister of Labour in Jens Stoltenberg’s government?
Karl-Petter Thorwaldsson: I believe the future is Nordic
As the EU focuses intensively on the Euro and other economic problems, it has never been more important to intensify Nordic cooperation says the new President of the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO), Karl-Petter Thorwaldsson.
Can culture turn the downturn around?
The role culture plays in creating jobs has become even more important. Both within the EU and in the Nordic region there is talk of culture being a creative catalyst which can help create competitiveness and employment in the wider economy.
Unemployment benefit cuts undermine the Danish model
Danish trade unions warn cuts to unemployment benefits are undermining the Danish labour market model.
Strengthening Nordic welfare state cooperation
Youth unemployment is a worry across the Nordic region. When Nordic labour ministers met in Svalbard recently they agreed to identify the good examples where employers help include young people out of work and education.
Challenges to welfare state at top of ministers’ in tray
Youth unemployment has high political priority in the Nordic region. At the latest Nordic Council of Ministers meeting, labour ministers agreed to encourage employers to take on some of the responsibility for young people who don’t work and who are not in education.
Finland’s comprehensive social guarantee for young people
The Finnish government is rolling out a comprehensive programme aimed at young people. The social guarantee aims to offer all under-25s and all newly educated under-30s a job, study place, apprenticeship or rehabilitation within three months of the young person becoming unemployed.
Catapulted into work?
A youth project in Åland called Catapult is aiming to integrate unemployed youths into the labour market. The name might sound a bit more dramatic than what actually faces its target group of 16 to 24 year olds. But it does say something about Nordic politicians’ expectations.
New drive to get young unemployed Danes into education and jobs
The Danish government launches another youth package to offer education to nearly 100,000 young people on benefits - many of whom have no further education at all. Meanwhile the effects of previous youth packages are beginning to materialise.
Editorial: Youth on the edge
Youth unemployment is a problem to which the open Nordic labour market should be part of the solution. ‘Jobbresan‘ (the Job Journey) organised by Nordic exchange programme Nordjobb is an exciting attempt at removing the remaining obstacles.
Swedish youths’ first job in Norway
Anyone moving to another Nordic country must have some money - the first pay check doesn’t come immediately, but the living costs do. In Norway you normally have to pay a three months’ deposit on top of the first month’s rent - enough to stop many young people in their tracks.
Nordic report: ‘Youth on the edge’ the greatest problem
Nordic youth unemployment figures between 10 and 25 percent are bad enough. Even more alarming is the fact that 5 to 10 percent of Nordic 15 to 24 year olds are not in education, work or training. This problem has risen during the latest economic crisis.
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