Denmark Will Require Migrants to Work for Welfare Benefits

In recent years, Copenhagen has been tightening its migration policies. In June, the Danish Parliament passed a law that allows relocation of refugees that arrive to the country seeking asylum to countries outside Europe.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced that some migrants in the country will be required to work in order to gain welfare benefits. The new migration policy will specifically target women from "non-Western backgrounds" who live on benefits, according to the Prime Minister.

"We want to introduce a new work logic where people have a duty to contribute and be useful, and if they can't find a regular job, they have to work for their allowance", Frederiksen explained to the reporters. "For too many years we have done a disservice to a lot of people by not demanding anything of them."

The proposal was rolled out by the minority Social Democratic government, envisaging migrants working for at least 37 hours a week in exchange for welfare benefits.

According to the Danish government, six out of 10 women from the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey are not at work.

"It is basically a problem when we have such a strong economy, where the business community demands labour, that we then have a large group, primarily women with non-Western backgrounds, who are not part of the labour market," the Prime Minister lamented.

The idea of putting immigrants to work in exchange for welfare benefits has not been met enthusiastically by all, however. Mai Villadsen, a lawmaker with the opposition Red-Green Alliance, referred to the proposal as "foolish".

"If the government wants to help people in jobs, then let's negotiate a real job guarantee with good jobs on contractual pay instead of the antisocial state-subsidized social dumping that the government is putting up with", she said tweeted.

Nej tak til social dumping gennem 37-timers tvangsaktivering. Hvis regeringen vil hjælpe mennesker i job, så lad os forhandle om en reel jobgaranti med gode job på overenskomstmæssig løn i stedet for den asociale statsstøttede sociale dumping, regeringen lægger op til. #dkpol

— Mai Villadsen (@MaiVilladsen) September 7, 2021

Denmark has been tightening its migration policies recently, with the numbers of asylum seekers in the country plummeting under the governance of Mette Frederiksen, who has occupied her post since 2019. According to Statistics Denmark, some 342 applications were received as of the second quarter of 2021, compared to a record 11,539 registered in the fourth quarter of 2015.