Today’s big topic: New calculations point to the key to Denmark’s jobs miracle
What’s happening?
The Danish jobs miracle belongs to older and international workers. Since 2010, when the financial crisis peaked, 395,000 full-time jobs have been created, and Denmark now has more than 3 million wage earners. It is primarily workers aged 60 and over, who have postponed their exit from working life, and international employees who are driving that growth. Together, those two groups account for 315,000 of the new full-time jobs.
That is according to an analysis by the Confederation of Danish Employers, based on figures from Statistics Denmark and Jobindsats. If those 315,000 employees had not answered the call, everyone else would, in theory, have had to work nearly six extra hours a week to meet companies’ demand.
»The rest of us would have had to work more to do the jobs that older and international workers have done«, Jacob Holbraad, chief executive of the Confederation of Danish Employers, says.
»Instead of a 37-hour workweek, it would have been a workweek of nearly 43 hours«.
Why it matters!
The question is what would have happened if older and international workers had not been available. Among workers represented by the trade union 3F, chief analyst Jesper Grunnet-Lauridsen called it »an extremely impressive development, and without that additional labor, the Danish economy would have been in a very different place«.
At 3F, the chief analyst noted that employers regularly call for better opportunities to attract foreign workers. There are currently 12 different programs, including the pay limit scheme, the positive list, and the arrangement for feed and operations managers in agriculture.
»Denmark is an incredibly attractive country to work in. It shows that good pay and working conditions can help attract employees from abroad. That is something we must hold on to«, Jesper Grunnet-Lauridsen said, emphasizing that 3F has no objection to foreign labor as long as the work is carried out under proper pay and employment conditions.
Still curious? Read the full article here.
In other news
– Rail chaos will spill into next year and the year after that, and the year after that
Even with a couple of months left in the year, a record has already been set for broken rails, speed restrictions, signal failures, downed overhead wires, and other »incidents« that have disrupted train operations. By now, rail passengers have grown accustomed to messages about canceled and delayed trains. In stark terms, six out of ten long-distance and regional trains have arrived on time this year, far short of the target of at least 75 percent punctuality. Passengers will get a better service next year, the head of Banedanmark hopes, but he warns that the next four to five years will bring reduced capacity on the rail network.
– Danish vice president of the European parliament lashes out at the European Union
In fact, the age limit of 15 for social media, which was supposed to take effect this summer, was the government’s first answer to nearly every challenge facing children that could even loosely be linked to their digital lives. Now, however, a new announcement from the European Commission may mean that the age limit cannot be introduced for another three years. That is according to Christel Schaldemose (The Social Democratic Party), a vice president of the European Parliament.
»I think it is the wrong decision, and I am disappointed by it«, she says after the European Commission announced that, over the next year, the EU will not approve new national legislation restricting access to social media.
– Russian ships have begun openly flying their flag in Danish waters
In a new analysis of the trend, Danish Shipping has found a sharp increase in the number of cargo vessels flying the Russian flag that have passed through Danish waters and by Skagen: while 296 cargo ships were recorded at Denmark’s northernmost tip in 2025, there had been 376 passages by September of this year. In September alone, 75 cargo ships flying the Russian flag were observed. Not all of the ships are necessarily carrying oil covered by sanctions, Danish Shipping stresses. But for Russia, it is critically important to its continuing war effort in Ukraine that oil and gas be delivered to the energy-hungry global market.
Talk of town: Danish TV station turns to extremes to capture viewers’ attention
Imagine being told that your biggest dream is coming true. That everyone around you is helping make it happen, especially your best friend. And then, four months later, finding out that it was all a lie. A prank.
That is exactly what happened to the comedian Rasmus Wallbridge.
In the TV 2’s program ’Everybody loves Rasmus’, viewers follow the comedian Rasmus Wallbridge over a four-month period as he believes he is developing and producing a feature film with his friend, the TV host and comedian Martin Johannes Larsen. But the whole thing is a hoax. And in the end, it is revealed that the 149 participating actors, friends and production staff had lied to Wallbridge throughout the entire period. That prompted a number of television personalities to criticize the program and call it bullying and gaslighting of Rasmus Wallbridge. TV 2 chose to pull the program from their lineup this weekend.
Vibeke Borberg is a lawyer with a Ph.D. in law specializing in information law, media law and press ethics. She says it is a problem if the media industry does not adhere to the ethical standards it has adopted for itself and instead misleads people:
»Competition has intensified to such a degree that TV producers and broadcasters are going further than they used to«, she says, adding that this is problematic for those affected:
»But also for media consumers, who are left with a bad taste in their mouths when they realize there were ethical issues they were unaware of when they were laughing at it in the first place«.
Still curious? Read the full article here.
This newsletter features stories originally published in Danish. AI was used to shorten and translate the articles into English, after which a member of the editorial staff reviewed and refined the content.