300,000 workers change jobs in six months

A recent survey reveals the great mobility of Danish workers, which is seen as being due to a decreasing sense of loyalty to their employers. The survey, which was conducted for the LO and FTF trade union confederations by Gallup, suggested that 10% of pay earners changed jobs in the six months from April to October 1998.

There seems to be a sharp increase in job turnover on the Danish labour market. According to analysis of a survey performed by the Gallup research institute for the Danish Confederation of Trade Unions (Landsorganisationen i Danmark, LO) and the Confederation of Salaried Employees and Civil Servants in Denmark (Funktionærernes og Tjenestemændenes Fællesråd, FTF) some 300,000 workers changed jobs in the six-month period from April to October 1998 - the same number of job changes as in the whole of the previous year. According to the Danish Central Bureau of Statistics (Danmarks Statistik), 306,000 workers changed jobs from the second quarter of 1997 to the second quarter of 1998.

LO consultantKim K Knudsen told "Udspil", the union confederation's newsletter, that the labour market has been turned upside down in relation to the previous period of high employment in the 1980s. "It is no longer employers who are looking for the best-qualified labour, but workers who are looking for the best employer." The economic upturn in Denmark in the 1990s is consequently still making itself felt on the labour market. The emergent recession which has appeared in the wake of the Asian financial crisis has not yet had an effect. Danish workers seem to be far less loyal to their employers than before: this, at any rate, is LO's and FTF's interpretation of the analysis.

The survey involved telephone interviews among a total of 3,206 persons, 10% of whom confirmed that they had taken up a new position within the past six months. With a labour force of some 2.9 million people, this would be equivalent to nearly 300,000 people having changed jobs.