In Focus
Refugees as labour market resource – can Norway learn from Sweden?
There is an important Nordic debate on how to integrate refugees faster and better into the labour market. At the Nordic ministers’ meeting in Helsinki, the exchange of experiences and new policies inspired discussions and new ways of thinking.
Roskilde municipality thinks new to get refugees faster into jobs
Getting newly arrived refugees quickly into work is a high priority with Roskilde municipality. Experience shows that early and employment-focused activation helps all parties.
Denmark and refugees: Traineeships and wage subsidised jobs work best
Denmark has redoubled its efforts to get newly arrived refugees quickly into working for companies. Earlier they had to learn Danish first.
Nordic countries are trailblazers, but few women reach top positions
Women in the Nordic countries participate in the labour market to a greater degree than in any other country. But some glass ceilings remain unbroken, concluded the conference “Global Dialogue on Gender in the World of Work” which was held in Helsinki in late November.
Nordic men blind to women’s working life challenges
The Nordic countries stand out with higher levels of well-being than anywhere else in the world, explained by the fact that women are expected to be active in the labour market and make an important contribution to household income. Yet men do not understand that women are facing a harder time in the labour market than themselves.
Mandatory continuing and further education – possible in the Nordic region?
“The process is underway,” comments the former Danish government minister and EU Commissioner Poul Nielsson. In November 2014 he was asked to review the Nordic cooperation on labour market issues. At the labour ministers’ meeting in Helsinki he presented his proposals for reforms and got reactions from the ministers.
Towards a more authoritarian labour market – without freedom of expression?
“This is not only about their working life. It is about their lives,” says Dag Yngve Dahle, who has written a book on the freedom of expression in working life together with Maria Amelie, called ‘Moderne munnkurv’, or Modern muzzle. They look at what happens to people who have been accused of a breach of loyalty to their employer.
Collective decision making important, but...
“All this research on collective decision making is important, but it has its limitations. I think far too much has been exaggerated. There is an extremely good relationship between the workers’ representatives and the company leadership,” exclaims Knut E. Sunde, director of industrial policy at the Federation of Norwegian Industries.
New barometer measures the level of collective decision making in Norway
People’s perceived level of influence over their own work situation has plummeted in Norway. In seven years the number of people saying they have a lot of influence has fallen from 89 percent to 77 percent. Imported leadership models get the blame.
Cycling into the future
There are great digital ambitions in the Nordic region: “Sweden will be a world leader in exploiting the opportunities of digitalisation”. Danish businesses will be “among the best in Europe when it comes to using IT”. But despite the grand words, there is also a worry that the Nordic region is lagging behind countries like the USA and China.
Youths monitored – voluntarily – by 2000 sensors
There is much talk about digitalisation and smart cities, but it is high time we posed some critical questions around how technology is being used, thinks Malin Granath. In early October she defended her thesis on the subject at the University of Linköping.
Digital revolution in the nursing home
At the Solbjerg nursing home, new digital solutions have freed up more time for employees to spend with the residents, and this is just the first phase in a digital revolution. In ten years from now, all of the home’s offices will be gone, predicts the nursing home’s coordinator.
Securing Danish welfare through digitalisation
Municipalities, regions and the central Danish government authority will explore new digital opportunities while maintaining citizens’ experience of the public arena as an accessible partner. Many public sector institutions are already well underway.
Bus drivers – a dying occupation as Finland goes for digitalised transport?
Finnish commuters are facing a very different journey to work in the future. Many transport sector jobs can disappear, or at least change. New traffic legislation aims to make transport services more flexible, based on the sharing economy and call control. And the self-driving robot buses are just around the corner.
Joint Finnish-Swedish project develops businesses in the archipelago
The three year long project starts in October. It will develop small businesses in the Finnish and Swedish archipelago, across borders and disciplines. The aim is to create new businesses, new knowledge and new clusters of cooperation, where digital opportunities play an important role.
The Nordic model under pressure from new leadership methods
New management models are threatening a long tradition of collective decision making within Nordic labour life, Nordic researchers say. Employees loose influence and their chance to cooperate to reach constructive solutions within organisations and businesses.
Nordic countries top of global trust league
The Nordic countries are top of the world when it comes to trust. This means people dare to cooperate, which benefits the economy a great deal. And from trust more trust is born.
Trust makes the workplace more innovative
Signe Jarvad is the boss of 60 employees at Copenhagen’s Leisure and Culture Administration and not afraid of making decisions. But not without sounding out all relevant parties, and she also leaves many of the decisions to the employees. She believes this has led to higher work satisfaction and more innovation.
The City of Copenhagen: Work based on trust, not control
Managing and leading public sector jobs using trust can help solve the complex challenges facing the Nordic welfare states, believes a researcher behind a new study on the Copenhagen trust reform. She challenges the Nordics to share experiences of trust-based management and leadership.
”Trade unions must organise people working though platforms”
The sharing economy represents a challenge to the labour market as we know it. In the face of this development, the Swedish trade union Unionen has just entered an agreement with German IG Metall. The aim is to find tools for how to organise the growing part of the labour force which works through online platforms.
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