Introduction and overview of the country
Denmark is one of the northern European countries, and it has a strategic location controlling the Danish Straits that link the Baltic and North Seas (Michigan State University, 2019).
The location provides the country large advantages, which can reflect on Denmark’s important industries. Transport and manufacturing are one of the largest industries for Danish, which support the economic growth, especially the manufacturing contributed on half export revenue (Bamber et al., 2015). Since Denmark is one of the members of European Union, the EU brings both benefits and disadvantages. The most beneficial aspect is Denmark’s trading, the top three trading partners are Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom (Michigan State University, 2019). The stable trading relationships ensure the Denmark’s economic stability. In the past 5 years, the GDP rate grow steadily. However, since EU directives requiring legislation, the political intervention was increased which break the original balance of the Danish labor regulation and cause society dumping(Bamber et al., 2015). On the other hand, Denmark has the “highest labor force participation in the OECD countries, which is around 75% of 15-to-64-year-olds” (Bamber et al., 2015). In Denmark, the whole labor market are influenced by its flexible employment protection legislation, generous unemployment insurance, and active labor market policies( Andersen, 2019).
Recruitment practices
The recruitment process in Denmark is similar to most countries, and it is a time-consuming process.
There are multiple ways for job seekers to find jobs in Denmark (Just Landed, 2019) :
Classified ads
The job postings can be found in local magazines, newspapers and online. The majority of companies in Denmark accept English as the main language, so the applicants can find the postings in English easily.
Direct application
If the applicants have ideas of the type of company want to work for, they can directly find the contact information through the companies’ websites and send their cover letters and resume. Otherwise, for most retail companies, it is also acceptable to drop their resumes at store.
Job fairs and career events
It is one of the most direct ways to apply jobs. Job fairs provide face-to-face opportunities for job seekers to know about the relevant companies and introduce themselves to the company hiring managers.
Networking
Networking plays an important role for some Denmark companies, and they do not have public recruitment advertisements. They more rely on internal employees and word of mouth method. Thus, it is important to build network relationships in Denmark, the networking is an effective way to find jobs.
Since the recruitment process takes time and resources, many companies would like to outsource through external partners, which increase opportunities for foreign job seekers.
Selection practices
Most companies would have telephone interviews before written tests such as personality profile, except for some small companies. Face-to-face interviews is the final step, and the hiring managers would choose the best candidates. Furthermore, Denmark organizations are becoming more diverse, which means human resource management start to concern about candidates’ cultural background during the requirement process. Especially there are many multinational corporations, and they would prefer employees having job experiences with high cultural awareness.
Miscellaneous information
Job posting
The Danish job centers provide information on all types of jobs for free, see www.jobnet.dk.
Other job board websites are like:
Holidays
Most companies would provide six-week holidays per year, and some companies such as bank might provide more than six-week annual holidays. Furthermore, the employees would have 12 official public holidays (Maria, 2016).
Prediction of unemployment issue
Recently, the whole world economy seems to be slowing down. Most countries start to suffer economic recession. Although Denmark still has increased GDP growth, the growth rate is obviously slower than previous. The unemployment issue is viewed as one of the largest impacted aspects because of the recession, so it is interesting to predict the Danish labor market trends. According to Andersen (2017), “despite recession-induced job losses, high turnover prevented a steep increase in long-term and youth unemployment.” Although there is no certain way to set up the minimum wage because of Denmark’s flexible policy, the wage adjustments are still made to prevent the massive unemployment. Furthermore, the country is changing the policy on immigrants, eligibility criteria, welfare benefits levels.
Bibliography
Michigan State University (2019). Denmark: Introduction. [online] Globaledge.msu.edu. Available at: https://globaledge.msu.edu/countries/denmark [Accessed 28 Oct. 2019].
Bamber, G.J., Lansbury, R.D., Wailes, N., & Wright, C.F. (2015). International and Comparative Employment Relations: National regulation, global changes, 6th edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.pp.208-234.
Andersen, T. (2017). The Danish labor market, 2000−2016. [online] Wol.iza.org. Available at: https://wol.iza.org/uploads/articles/404/pdfs/the-danish-labor-market.pdf [Accessed 28 Oct. 2019].
Maria (2016). How to recruit in Denmark ? The HR Guide | Jobboardfinder.com. [online] Jobboard Finder News. Available at: https://www.jobboardfinder.com/news/how-to-recruit-in-denmark/ [Accessed 28 Oct. 2019].
Just Landed (2019). Finding a job. [online] Just Landed. Available at: https://www.justlanded.com/english/Denmark/Denmark-Guide/Jobs/Finding-a-job [Accessed 28 Oct. 2019].
Pictures resources:
https://www.google.ca/search?q=denmark&sxsrf=ACYBGNRic1WZ6GyXGxZZ1DzkqTyaPXMIWA:1572295898624&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiprJPU6r_lAhWIpp4KHQnoBgoQ_AUIEygD&biw=1366&bih=707#