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Vast number of ICT immigrants to DK
From 2007 to 2009 we saw a nearly twofold increase in foreign workers coming to Denmark on the basis of the job-card programme. Speculations are that especially the ICT industry is in need of employees.
When Øresund IT hosted its introductory seminar for the BrandIT project on January 28, 2010 Charlotte Mark, CEO of Microsoft Development Center Copenhagen, elaborated on this tendency, which has been evident to the IT giant for a while.
Before Danish and Swedish stakeholders within the Øresund ICT Region she announced our greatest challenge to deal with lack of employees.
According to the regulations of the Danish job-card programme the only condition companies need to fulfill to take in expertise workforce from abroad is a yearly wage of 375,000 DKK. Obviously this amount automatically acts as a guideline for wages of Danish employees as it also acts as a rough indication of when hiring foreign workers is profitable.
As the number of workers entering through the job-card programme is a general indication and therefore not specific for a certain industry there are no details on the exact number of ICT people arriving. However as Morten Skov from the union, HK Privat, says: "There is no doubt that more ICT people than previously are entering from abroad trough these programmes".
On the other hand he is anything but impressed with propositions from the Danish political party, Radikale Venstre, and the organisation Dansk Industri suggesting lower wages for the foreign workers in attempt to encourage Danish companies to attract foreign qualified workers.
"If you want to attract people from abroad it would be better to offer a higher salary" Morten Skov says, and at the same time implying that a decrease of the amount would only prejudice the employees while enabling employers to land cheap labour.
Source: Computerworld
