The Danes hold the record in changing jobs

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According to Politiken, a survey from the European Commission shows that the Danes have an average of six jobs in the course of a working life. Swedes and Britons change jobs nearly as often while the Austrians have three jobs during their working lives. In Southern Europe, Greeks and Italians choose to change jobs more often than the Austrians, but still only half as often as the Danes. The survey also shows that 72 percent of the Danes think it’s good to change jobs once in a while.

A job change is not something unusual today, where one out of four Danes change jobs annually, according to a survey by the Confederation of Danish Employers. It places Denmark at the top in Europe as the nation that most frequently signs new employment contracts – an act that the Confederation of Danish Employers, believes will benefit all of society.

The countries where this doesn’t happen, there is a risk that employees’ value to society is not unfolding in the best way. In many European countries  employees are not changing jobs very frequently because the labor market is not as flexible as ours,

says Erik Simonsen, who is a senior consultant at the Danish Employers’ Confederation.

He believes that the value  being created as we move forward to a more attractive job is both for the benefit of ourselves, because our skills are better utilized, but then also for society and for the company. In some European countries they are very focused on preserving jobs in the companies whereas in Denmark there is a broad acceptance that sometimes jobs disappear. Our focus is that we instead will create new jobs.”

He does not believe that anything in the future will change our frequent job changes.

“It is difficult to discern who is not interested in continuing this model here, because there are no real losers. If you look isolated at the 500 employees who lost their jobs at House of Prince, which will close – then they will naturally find it very negative. They will experience a huge shift in their lives, ” says Erik Simonsen and continues: “But as soon as you raise the perspective off the individual and look at whether frequent job changes are a nuisance or a benefit  for society and the individual employee, there’s no doubt for most people. We have seen it previously in, for example, the textile industry where it’s had a tremendous impact that we haven’t held on to preserving the jobs in the country. ”

He also believes that Denmark’s prosperity is directly dependent on the fact that we are open to change – and that the frequent job changes are an expression of it. The senior consultant believes that we are much better off in Denmark than in other European countries, including with regards to youth unemployment which is very high in some countries. In Spain, for example, the youth unemployment rate is of 30 to 40 percent because it is harder to dismiss people – and therefore, companies are reluctant to hire.

We avoid this in Denmark because it is very easy to hire and fire people and companies have a high degree of flexibility. When young people are unemployed for a long time, they get a problem with keeping their skills up-to-date, and thus have even more difficulty in getting a job.

The culture of changing jobs frequently partly origins from the economic structure of many smaller businesses in Denmark. In large companies you can so to speak “live” for a long time by switching jobs within the walls, which is harder in a small company.

In addition, Denmark has a welfare system, which means that there is a real alternative if you do not have a job. We’ve got our unemployment insurance system.