Fewer Swedes interested in working in Denmark as tide turns

Tuesday, 20 August 2013
Denmark in the past has been the saviour of Swedish jobs market with scores of Swedes travelling across the bridge to work in Denmark thus reducing the Swedish unemployment rate. Today the situation is changing, with Denmark emerging less attractive for the Swedish job seeker than before. Question: Why?

Fewer Swedes have started working on the other side the Oresund's bridge, according to reports from the Oresund news agency referring t the number of people who make the commute periodically. During the first half of 2013, 21 percent fewer Swedes took jobs in Denmark, compared to the same period last year.

Until the middle of 2008, the number of people, living in Sweden and working in Denmark was steadily rising.

However, when the economic crisis hit, the trend reversed. Since then, the number of Swedes who take Danish jobs declined, though there was an exception last year where the number grew instead by six percent.

Total amount of people who commuted to Denmark from Sweden reached 14,753 people in the third quarter of last year.
Some reason for the fall has to do with the fall of the Danish Krona as opposed to Swedish krona.  Before the crisis, the Danish currency controlled the market and it was gold for a Swedish worker to lay their fingers on. However, the Danish economy was hard hit by the crisis with its banks busting and the house market falling. The currency plunged and the benefit of crossing the bridge faded.

Secondly, the Danish job market became more competitive with many eastern Europeans flooding in and Danish unemployment rising meaning that the Danes where forced to do the jobs they did not want to do in the past. It became hard for the Swedes to get those job the Danes did not want to do.

Lastly, The Swedish economy recovered from the crisis better though with unemployment still high, more jobs seekers moved either to Norway or other countries in the EU and beyond.
by Scancomark.com Team