Editorial
Who wants to hire young women and men with two children?
Mar 25, 2024 March is when gender equality usually takes centre stage. This year, the NLJ’s gender equality barometer shows a setback for women's share of 24 power positions in the Nordic countries. But we also look at childbirth, artificial intelligence, the EU's platform directive, and Iceland's refugee policy.
tema
Severe drop in childbirth rates across the Nordics
Mar 25, 2024 What will happen to the Nordic labour market when birth rates in all of the five Nordic countries have fallen to record-low levels? Can existing assisted fertilisation technology help increase the number of children? Or is the drop in foreign adoptions larger?
tema
Danish expert: Support young people to get pregnant, not to freeze their eggs
Mar 25, 2024 Female employees in large American companies can have their eggs frozen and delay having children – as a workplace benefit. A leading Danish infertility expert recommends Nordic employers and governments take an opposite approach and support young people to have children while they are students or newly employed.
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"Structures maintain the gender-segregated labour market"
Mar 25, 2024 “Men are underrepresented across the entire welfare sector, including healthcare, social care and education. Research shows that the reasons primarily lie on an organisational and structural level and that efforts to get more men to choose jobs in the welfare sector therefore must also be targeted at an organisational and structural level.”
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Paulina Brandberg – the Minister for Equality who wants to take a tough stance
Mar 25, 2024 What can the Nordics bring to inspire other countries to improve gender equality? Sweden’s Minister for Equality Paulina Brandberg has two rather surprising examples: High divorce numbers and changing tables in the gents.
tema
2024 Equality barometer: Three significant women have disappeared from power
Mar 25, 2024 Two years ago, it looked like the 24 positions of power in the NLJ’s gender equality barometer were just a few years away from being equally divided between men and women. Women had reached 92 points, and at 100 they would be on par with men. But in 2023, women’s points fell to 72 and this year sees a further fall down to 65 points.
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Major increase in applications: Iceland’s government seeks tighter immigration rules
Mar 25, 2024 There have been strong and frequent discussions about a change in the immigration system in Iceland in recent years. The reason is a huge increase in asylum applications which has proved very costly for the Icelandic state.
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EU directive gives Nordic platform workers new hope
Mar 25, 2024 The EU platform work directive is in place at last. It should help platform workers in the Nordic EU countries who work for companies like Foodora and Wolt to secure decent working conditions. In Norway, this was solved at the start of this year through a change to the working environment act.
Editorial
Socially excluded young people, a key issue across the Nordics
Feb 29, 2024 Across the Nordic region, there is a focused search for measures to include young people who are not in education or employment into the labour market. Researchers agree that the best solution is for young individuals to be followed up by people they can have close and long-term relationships with. But the number of people who find themselves socially excluded remains approximately on the same level.
tema
Danish Royal stardust for youth jobs in Esbjerg
Feb 29, 2024 ”Energy for Each Other” is a youth initiative in Esbjerg municipality, known across Denmark, which has won an award for getting young people into education and work. Three of those young people now work at Den Jyske Kontrolcentral, where head of operations Erik Sørensen is very content with his young co-workers.
tema
Employment specialist helped Norwegian Julia (17) find her dream job
Feb 29, 2024 Close cooperation between two public authorities in Norway is giving young people with mental health challenges a new chance in the classroom or in the labour market. Employment specialist Anne Tvedt helped Julia Engan Pettersen find her dream job.
tema
Iceland: Work is better than therapy for vulnerable youth
Feb 29, 2024 “It pays to invest in people, and we must never give up on our young people,” says Vigdís Jónsdóttir, the CEO of the job rehabilitation centre VIRK in Iceland. Last year, VIRK was one of the signatories to a memorandum of understanding involving a large increase in support for young people in vulnerable situations.
News
Immigrants struggle to find work in the Nordics despite labour shortages
Feb 29, 2024 Many immigrants in Nordic countries are left without jobs, despite labour shortages. The Finnish company Snellman has a lot of experience with hiring immigrants. “Immigrants are very keen on getting a job and they are keen workers. They are loyal employees,” says head of HR Ann-Marie Eklund.
tema
Considerable local differences in Sweden's efforts for NEETs
Feb 29, 2024 Swedish municipalities have very different approaches to how they help more young people with social inclusion, according to a survey that also includes examples of successful measures. Meanwhile, a Nordic project is working to improve young people’s mental health – one of the biggest risk factors for ending up in social exclusion.
News
Threats to Swedish social service workers: New inquiry proposes stricter legislation
Feb 29, 2024 Threats and harassment against public officials in Sweden are commonplace and on the rise. This has major consequences for individual employees and risks undermining democracy in the long term. A new public inquiry proposes stricter penalties for violence towards public officials as well as making it a crime to insult public officials.
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