The Copenhagen Post | Feb 8-14

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PM holds firm on EU rebate demand

Nearly 400 Lego jobs in Denmark to be cut

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Chinese Spring Festival supplement

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8 - 14 February 2013 | Vol 16 Issue 6

rt 2013

Denmark’s only English-language newspaper | cphpost.dk SCANPIX / HENNING BAGGER

NEWS

Give us more buses and bikes, 14 area mayors argue ahead of traffic committee’s recommendations

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NEWS

Extraordinary rendition Report reveals that Denmark was among the countries who took part in controversial US tactics

7 COMMUNITY

Targeted

Islam critic Lars Hedegaard survives assassination attempt

Buds and babes: American football fans have a late night enjoying the Super Bowl

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InOut

Let love rule!

Disagreement over whether cutting benefits increases workforce PETER STANNERS

Valentine’s Day is around the corner – here’s our guide to what to do with your special someone

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Employers’ association says unemployment benefits are too generous to encourage work, but others say cutting benefits will marginalise society’s vulnerable

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NEMPLOYMENT benefits need an overhaul in order to create a greater economic incentive for people to find work, according to the Danish association of employers, Danmarks Arbejdgiversforening (DA). In a report released this weekend, DA argued that the generosity of unemployment benefits – combined with the

number of people who claim them – are a burden on government finances and an obstacle preventing Denmark’s economy to grow. “It should always pay to work and say ‘yes’ to a job,” DA’s managing director, Jørn Neergaard Larsen, said. “That’s not the case today because of the generosity of the welfare system.” According to DA, Denmark would have 270,000 fewer welfare recipients and save 50 billion kroner a year annually if it had the same proportion of its population receiving government support as Sweden does. The report concludes that if the government expects to make any economic progress, it needs to use the upcoming reform of the least-generous cash welfare

benefit, kontanthjælp, to get more Danes into work. “If more isn’t done to enact significant reform in Denmark, we will continue to see industrious foreigners take jobs in Denmark while Danes capable of working stay on welfare,” the report stated. “Over time, this will cause the welfare model to break down.” DA is not alone in the belief that generous unemployment benefits play a significant role in suppressing the national economy. The liberal think-tank Cepos and the libertarian opposition party Liberal Alliance have both called for decreasing the generosity of kontanthjælp in order to increase the incentive to find work. But it is far from a universallyheld belief, and many experts that The

Copenhagen Post spoke with argued that reducing kontanthjælp could have grave consequences for society’s most vulnerable. Among them was Lisbeth Pedersen, the head of employment and labour market research at the national centre for social research, SFI. She explained that individuals receiving kontanthjælp do so for a variety of reasons, and are in different stages of preparedness to reenter the labour market. “Some are unemployed simply because they are out work, while others can’t work because of health issues such as mental illness,” Pedersen said, adding that cutting welfare for the people with

Incentive continues on page 7

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