Archive for February 2012
Educated immigrants overlooked
URL: http://politiken.dk/indland/ECE1540501/kloge-udlaendinge-bliver-overset/
Foreign expert workers must be brought to the country to get growth, we often hear from Danish companies.
But both public and private employers overlook the competent immigrants already here.
A new study from the Institute of Governmental Research (AKF) show that brought education and work experience does not help immigrants in employment.
“It’s only Danish and Danish professional education, which helps immigrants’ employment chances. They brought with them skills to help them, and it results in a double waste of resources to the community, “says Jacob Nielsen Arendt, research director of AKF.
The barriers must be removed
AKF has analyzed 761 immigrants from Turkey, Pakistan and Iran, which on average has been here for 15 years at the time of inspection.
57 percent had a secondary, vocational or higher education from the country of origin, but the training gave them a higher employment rates than immigrants with no education.
Every third of those with a vocational or higher education in the baggage is in response to the lack of job opportunities chosen to take a Danish course at least equivalent amount. Which leads to the next get a job. We call AKF-researchers with a double waste of resources:
“By removing barriers to some of the educated enter directly into the workforce and contribute to society. Instead occurs the next wasted because society then uses the resources that the double-educate themselves. Resources could probably be better spent on immigrants with no education, “says Jacob Nielsen Arendt.
Immigrants considered incompetent
Businesses complain regularly about the lack of highly skilled labor force with a global view. But the resource is located at the feet of employers, said several experts.
“We have a group of immigrants who repeatedly been found to be problematic and costly, and employers shall take them into. In reality, one should look at the group as a resource that businesses can use to become more competitive, “says Garbi Schmidt, professor of cultural studies at Roskilde University.
Same call from the company Relocare that helps highly skilled foreigners to gain a foothold in the labor market. Director Else Christensen find that employers mentality is an essential part of the problem.
“The foreigners who are here in the country, deemed incompetent immigrants, whereas foreigners abroad is considered a potential resource employee,” she says.
Important with a Danish education
But the trade association DI think it is not that employers have a responsibility.
Senior Consultant Sarah Gade Hansen suggests that there may be many reasons why the foreign education can not be used in Denmark, for example. a little about them. Therefore, she believes that it is “very positive” that immigrants complement with a Danish education.
“It’s really important that we in Denmark use the potential that we have already in the country. But many companies lack experts with special skills that you can no longer find in Denmark today, “she says.
Immigrants work in precarious jobs
URL: http://politiken.dk/erhverv/article1551593.ece
The crisis has reduced the proportion of immigrants from non-Western countries in the work. They simply work in the most affected industries.
Immigrants living life precariously on the job market.
They often work in factories, cleaning or in the canteen where the risk of layoffs is greatest. Thousands of industry job has been moved out of the country during the crisis, and when the belt must be tightened so that there will be throttled down to the canteen or cleaning.
“When companies need to save, so it is often in the production and support that is being cut. And those are the people with visible challenges, such as language, which often stands only. It is often those companies believe that they can best do without. Immigrants are located in other words, in highly exposed jobs, “said Josephine Fenger.
She is an expert in diversity management and integration of immigrants at the Center for Active Employment, CABI.
Working in production, catering and cleaning
CABI has made a study where they among other things, have looked at what types of jobs immigrants with non-Western background working in the light of an analysis of 382 companies.
64 percent of immigrant background working in the core production in manufacturing and almost 30 percent in the canteen, cleaning and the like. The results were compared with other studies.
“People with immigrant background are still overrepresented in the production and service occupations that do not require as much education and so great language skills. This is where the easiest to find work, but it also makes them vulnerable because their job easier is saved away, “said Josephine Fenger.
Conclusions aligns well with an analysis of the Labour Movement (AE) did last year. In 2008, 46.3 percent of immigrants with non-western background in labor, but the figure had dropped to 40.4 percent in 2010, when the financial crisis had taken hold.
For descendants of non-Western immigrants declined participation rate from 54.1 percent in 2008 to 44.7 percent in 2010.
“The crisis has been hard on immigrants in the labor market. These figures may even have been a little worse over the past year where the economy is facing, “says Lars Andersen, AE.
The language is the problem
The rate of employment among Danes has also declined during the crisis, but much more modest – namely from 71.1 to 67.4 percent.
“It’s gone better integration in the 1990s and the early years of this decade, but some progress has been squandered. It shows that immigrants are a vulnerable group in the labor market, “said Lars Andersen.
In the summer of 2008 there were around 70,000 unemployed when activated counted but the numbers rose quite rapidly in the wake of the financial crisis to more than 160,000 unemployed.
At our company Fruits & Vegetables Total Pak on Vestfyn know the problems with foreign workers. Here are 15 of some 40 staff immigrants.The company has not been out in saves below.
“But I understand the companies that choose to divest itself of immigrants if they are to dismiss. It can be difficult to give instructions when a portion of the employees do not speak Danish or misunderstand what is being told, “says director, Finn Jorgensen, Fruits & Vegetables Total Pak.
The Director believes nevertheless that it is wrong to choose the immigrants first.
“They are good and stable workforce and will gladly work overtime if necessary. I do not care where people are born, if they can get something from your hands, “said Finn Jorgensen.
The language is a challenge
At Total Pak has introduced language that takes place partly during working hours, partly for leisure. On the other hand, it has become mandatory to speak Danish in production.
“There may be cliques, where two rural men stand and speak a foreign language. Our Danish employees feel left out when, for example, works with two Poles who talk in their native language, “says Finn Jorgensen.
At CABI assess Josephine Fenger that language difficulties are one of the reasons that immigrants are more vulnerable than others. In CABI’s study estimates across 43 percent of the companies the language as a ‘challenge’.
“Once you’ve lost their jobs and have difficulty in the Danish language in advance so that it can in the current business cycle is very difficult to find a new job. And language problems can also make it difficult to find a relevant qualification bids. Thus, there is great danger that you’re trapped in an almost impossible situation, “said Josephine Fenger.
Immigrants discriminated at work place
URL: http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Indland/2012/02/26/213237.htm
When the hair is black and the eyes are brown, working in Denmark can be a mixed pleasure. Workplace is in fact the only place where immigrants with non-Western background over the past 11 years has seen a small increase in discrimination rather than a decrease.
The weekly A4 writes the article based on the latest figures from market research Voxmeter which annually measures the discrimination in Danish society.
In 2000, only every tenth immigrant who pointed to colleagues as the culprits when they had experienced discrimination. Now it is every six.
Tolerance is less
The trend worries Donald Ejrnæs, lecturer and researcher in labor and ethnicity at RU. There are two explanations for the increase, he told BBC News.
- One is that immigrants are in contact with customers and Danish colleagues, where they had a little more isolated job.
- The second is that the crisis means that there is competition for jobs. Danes feel more insecure and threatened to keep working, and it comes as reflected by less tolerant of others in jobs, including immigrants.
The consequence could be very unlucky. Namely, a segregated labor market without cohesion and greater contact between Danes and immigrants.
Mentoring can help
Donald Ejrnæs fear that some migrants will withdraw from contact with ethnic Danes on the labor market and prefer secure bastions in the cleaning industry and hotel and restaurant kitchens.
The responsibility for change on the development lies with both employers and trade unions and also the state, says Anders Ejrnæs.
He points out that jobs could set up mentoring schemes to address social inclusion in the workplace.
Foreign students want to stay, report difficulty in finding work
URL: http://cphpost.dk/news/national/foreign-students-want-stay-report-difficulty-finding-work
Foreign students are by and large interested in remaining in Denmark after completing their education, but many of them feel that Danish employers aren’t interested in hiring them.
A new study conducted by Momentum – the newsletter of the association of local councils, Kommunernes Landsforeging – and the career centre at CBS surveyed 334 students from 52 different countries.
A whopping 77 percent said they could imagine staying in Denmark after their studies. But that, of course, would require finding a job, and the respondents weren’t very optimistic about their chances. Some 37 percent said that Danish businesses were uninterested in hiring qualified foreign workers, while 40 percent believed the opposite.
Despite the number of foreign students in Denmark skyrocketing in recent years, the difficulty of finding work often results in the students leaving the country.
According to figures from the Agency for Universities and Internalisation (Styrelsen for International Uddannelse), the number of foreign students rose from just 793 in 2000 to 3,028 in 2009. A total of 17,306 international students were educated in Denmark between 2001 and 2009. Of those, just half remained in Denmark after their education, and of those that choose to stay, 74 percent have jobs.
The ability to find meaningful work is key to getting the students to stay, said Finn Kjerulff Hansen, a career councillor at CBS.
“If the students don’t find a job within six months, most of them go back home,” Hansen told Momentum. “Not least of all because Copenhagen is a very expensive place to live if you don’t have a job. The job market needs to be much more open to international students.”
The students in the study pointed to that fact, saying that it is very rare to find job openings posted in English. Some 59 percent said that they “rarely” or “almost never” saw job postings in English. Not surprisingly then, 78 percent of the respondents agreed that learning Danish was necessary in order to find work in Denmark.
The students’ perception that finding work in Denmark is difficult was greeted with concern by Dansk Industri.
“It’s unfortunate that the foreign students have that impression,” DI’s research director Charlotte Rønhof told Momentum. “Not only does that weaken Danish companies’ opportunities to attract the most talented candidates, it is also factually incorrect. Danish companies to a great extent hire foreign specialists and will need them more and more moving forward.”
The large number of students that expressed their interest in staying in Denmark pointed first and foremost to Copenhagen’s appeal. Over three quarters of the respondents specifically mentioned Copenhagen as one of the main appeals for staying in the country. The second most-popular reason was that students felt there was a better life-work balance in Denmark than in their home countries. While 70 percent of the respondents said they were not bothered by the country’s high level of taxes.
