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IMMIGRATION

Half of all immigrants to Denmark in 2021 moved for work reasons

A new report from Statistics Denmark shows that 48 percent of residence permits granted to foreign nationals in Denmark in 2021 were for employment reasons. Asylum seekers accounted for 1 percent of new residents.

Published: 1 December 2022 15:20 CET
Half of all immigrants to Denmark in 2021 moved for work reasons
Around half of immigrants to Denmark in 2021 moved to the country for work purposes. Photo by Marco Chilese on Unsplash

Since the beginning of the century, the reasons for which foreign nationals are granted residency in Denmark have changed considerably, according to a new report by national agency Statistics Denmark.

Over 48 percent of foreign nationals who moved to Denmark with a residence permit in 2021 did so for the purpose of working in the country.

That is the highest level in the last 20 years.

“During the last 20 years there has been a steep increase of immigration of persons who do not have Danish or Nordic citizenship, only briefly interrupted in 2020 because of Covid-19,” Statistics Denmark senior consultant Jørn Korsbø Petersen said in a press statement.

“But the reason for the immigrants’ residence has changed a lot during this period and last year almost half came to Denmark due to work,” Petersen said.

Data from back in 1997 show that during that year, half of the 21,264 people who were issued residency in Denmark arrived for asylum or family reunification reasons, with 32 percent moving for work or study.

In 2021, those proportions had shifted with 70 percent of the total 52,736 arrivals for reasons of either work or study.

Just 1 percent of residence permits were given for asylum with 5 percent granted family reunification.

The primary reason for that change is the increase in people moving to Denmark from other EU countries, according to Statistics Denmark.

Since 1997, a number of new countries including Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Romania have joined the EU, with immigration from these countries to Denmark for work reasons subsequently increasing.

Nationals of EU countries can freely move to Denmark to work under the right to free movement guaranteed by EU membership. Citizens of other countries do not have the same rights and must fulfil stringent criteria to be granted residency in the Nordic country.

READ ALSO: How can you get a work permit in Denmark if you are not an EU national?

That is reflected by the data, Statistics Denmark notes. Of the 25,500 persons who immigrated to Denmark for work reasons in 2021, 19,500 were EU or EEA citizens.

The numbers show that the demand for labour in Denmark is “almost insatiable” in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Tore Stramer, the senior economist with the Danish Chamber of Commerce (Dansk Erhverv).

“Foreign labour has been a very important lifeline for Danish businesses at this conjuncture,” he said.

“If businesses had not been able to recruit foreign labour, the economic recovery after the corona crisis would have been significantly harder,” he said in a written comment.

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RESIDENCY PERMITS

Bank guarantee: Could Denmark change ‘demeaning’ family reunification rule?

A rule requiring Danes and foreign partners to deposit a large sum of money to qualify for family reunification is again in the spotlight after reports on its administrative costs.

Published: 9 March 2023 08:10 CET
Bank guarantee: Could Denmark change 'demeaning' family reunification rule?

In its policy paper from December 2022, the coalition government stated it wants to halve the “bank guarantee” (bankgaranti), a requirement which demands couples deposit a large sum of money with municipalities for the foreign (non-EU national) partner to be granted a residence permit under family reunification rules.

According to figures from the Danish Immigration Service (Udlændingestyrelsen), the bank guarantee, which must be paid in order for the foreign partner to be granted residence, is set at an eye-watering 110,293 kroner (€14,800) in 2023.

It is currently unclear when a bill will be tabled in parliament to implement the government’s planned reduction of the bank guarantee under Danish law. Minister for Immigration and Integration Kaare Dybvad Bek told newspaper Ekstra Bladet in January that a proposal could be ready for hearing “this spring”.

But it has become a renewed topic of discussion after broadcaster DR this week reported that Copenhagen Municipality has not once used any bank guarantee deposits within the last three years, but has spent 2.2 million kroner annually on administration of the rule.

The purpose of the bank guarantee is ostensibly to ensure that municipalities can draw from the fund to pay for costs such as unemployment benefits, if the family reunified person needs them.

But the requirement may have little practical effect because foreign nationals resident under family reunification rules are likely to lose their residence status anyway if unemployed, negating the need for social welfare benefits.

Copenhagen currently has around 4,000 active bank guarantees and the cost of administration of these deposits – around 2.2 million kroner per year – was spent without any of them being used, DR reports based on an access to public records request.

In Aarhus, the municipality uses resources approximate to one full-time employee per year on administration of the scheme, according to DR. Like in Copenhagen, there were no withdrawals in 2022. There were “few” cases where the money was used in Aarhus in preceding years according to the report.

“I’m a supporter of strict immigration rules but it should not be crazy,” the head of Copenhagen Municipality’s integration and employment committee Jens-Kristian Lütken, an elected official with the Liberal (Venstre) party, told DR.

“It looks that way from my chair when we are spending so much money on something where no one is being sanctioned,” he said.

Social Democratic councillor for social issues and employment in Aarhus, Anders Winnerskjold, told DR that “this is an example of something where we say ‘are we actually getting the benefit we think we are’, and we’re actually not because we’re spending more time on it than is needed in reality”.

“I basically agree that we should be careful about creating a flow of people that must be provided for by Danish taxpayers, and as such the intention behind the bank guarantee is good,” he said.

“But you have to say that we’re not really hitting the target here, so there must be other ways to solve this problem,” he said.

After 10 years – the usual point at which permanent residency can be granted – the bank guarantee is no longer required, but it must remain in place until this time.

An affected Danish national who spoke to The Local in 2021 described how the bank guarantee posed a hefty financial burden that made it harder for international couples to live up to the many other integration demands placed on third-country partners.

The bank guarantee has been criticised in the past for being unfit for purpose and an administrative burden for local authorities.

Organisation Marriage Without Borders (Ægteskab uden Grænser) says it wants the bank guarantee to be abolished and replaced with the same criteria used for family reunification under EU law.

“On a human level, there are many Danes who feel alienated and find the criteria demeaning because it means in practice that you must demonstrate that your partner is not a threat to Danish society,” the organisation wrote in a social media post.

“Even if the security guarantee is halved (as the government plans), there will still be Danes who ‘can’t afford love’, such as young students,” it also stated.

In a written comment to DR, Bek said that “foreigners who come to Denmark should be self-sufficient and not a burden to the state. The bank guarantee, which was introduced over 20 years ago, helps ensure that”.

“In addition to the preventative effect that the bank guarantee has, it also enables municipalities to recover potential future costs in the event that a family reunified person receives benefits,” he stated.

“It is obviously not a criteria for success that municipalities withdraw money from the bank guarantee. The criteria for success is the opposite: that family reunified persons continue to provide for themselves,” he added.

The minister has previously confirmed that the government wants to reduce the bank guarantee to enable people with lower disposable sums to apply for family reunification.

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