(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
While the Norwegian government and governments in a number of EU countries have worked intensively to stop a massive migration from the east that will seek employment in Western Europe as the EU expands on May 1, a new challenge emerges.
Now it turns out that Eastern Europeans do not need to move. The jobs come to them instead of where they live. This confirms the assumptions of a number of leading politicians in the new EU countries: The fear of a migration from east to west is greatly exaggerated.
Jens Brendstrup, chief economist for the largest employer association in Denmark in the trade, transport and service industries, HTS, says that the jobs are disappearing faster than expected from Denmark.
Jens Brendstrup tells the newspaper Jyllands-Posten that for many years they have focused on the disappearance of industrial jobs from Western Europe.
- We have believed that our education system is so far ahead of other countries that it would take at least 15-20 years before we would really feel the pressure on knowledge-intensive jobs. But today we must state that this pressure is already there and we are threatened in important core areas, says Jens Brendstrup.
Not alone
HTS has now chosen to adjust its figures showing how many Danish workers are affected by the job flight. Today, HTS believes that at least 100.000 Danish workers are affected by the flagging of Danish jobs to Eastern Europe and Asia. Brendstrup says that just a few years ago, they had not anticipated that so many engineers and service industry employees would be affected.
Recent Danish surveys show that it is not only the large companies that choose to move jobs from Denmark. It turns out today that smaller jobs with between 10 and 50 employees also choose to move parts of the jobs to other countries with cheaper labor. These are particularly countries in Eastern Europe in addition to India, Ukraine and China.
More jobs
Although exports of Danish jobs worry both employees and their employers, several Danish economists believe that this will be a benefit for Danish workers in the longer term.
Jens Brendstrup believes that Denmark will create around 40.000 more jobs in Denmark in the longer term than it will disappear from the country in the short term. But the assumption is that the Danish companies will be better at creating jobs while also having the opportunity to exploit the stories that Danish cremers are better than other cremers.
One of the Danish companies that has left a growing part of their jobs in other parts of the world for many years is the textile manufacturer Bestseller.
Troels Holch Povlsen, who started Bestseller in 1975, tells HTS-Erhverv that locking jobs to other cheaper countries has always been an important part of the industry's policy. He says that without this policy, Denmark would not have had any textile industries at all
Bestseller currently has 11.000 employees, of which only 1500 are in Denmark. In addition, Bestseller purchases services from other companies so that an additional 70.000 people produce the products for the company.
Companies like Bestseller develop ideas and products in Denmark, while products are produced in other countries to reduce costs as far as possible.
Bestseller got 296 new employees in Denmark in 2003. According to the director, this would have been impossible without all the jobs they have created in other countries.
- If we do not operate globally, we will not create new jobs – not even in Denmark, says Troels Holch Povlsen to HTS-Erhverv.
Knows the challenge
The Trade and Service Industry's Main Organization (HSH) in Norway, today does not have figures comparable to what the Danes have presented. Thomas Angell, HSH director, says they are still aware of this challenge.
£ b: – What we do know, however, is that Norwegian trading companies are increasingly internationalizing themselves through establishments in other countries, especially the Nordic and Eastern European ones. This applies in particular to retail. The characteristic of these establishments, however, is not gaining access to cheap labor, but gaining access to a growing and increasingly purchasing power market, says Thomas Angell to Ny Tid.
- But when it comes to "knowledge-intensive workplaces", we have little overview, but we know, for example, that Norwegian companies have their accounts kept in Ireland, says Thomas Angell.
