Denmark has long held the title of the best place on earth to be laid off. With an expensive, generous welfare state, and the world’s most lavish unemployment insurance scheme, virtually no one falls through the cracks upon losing a job.But the government unveiled an unpleasant surprise in June, when it halved the country’s whopping four-year unemployment benefits period to help mend its finances after the financial crisis.
The reason: Danish studies show that the longer a person goes without a job, the harder it is to find work. Many people get a job within the first three months of entering the system, but many more wait until just before benefits expire to take anything available.
In addition to halving the unemployment benefits period, the government is pinning high hopes on job activation programs, one of the three pillars in Denmark’s famed “flexicurity” model. Employers have carte blanche to hire and fire, and in turn, the jobless are guaranteed benefits if they attend retraining and job placement programs tailored to prepare them for work where labor is scarce.
More at The New York Times
Reference: Denmark Starts to Trim Its Admired Safety Net
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