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September 2nd
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More Danes willing to work abroad

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The number of adult Danes who say they would be willing to relocate to another European country for a new job has nearly doubled since 2008, according to a recent survey conducted by business consultancy company Capacent for the Danish Chamber of Commerce.

Forty-eight percent of those surveyed responded that they would be willing to move within Europe for the sake of their careers, and 37 percent would be willing to relocate to non-European countries as well.

A similar survey conducted two years earlier revealed that only 27 percent of Danes at that time were willing to relocate to another European country for a job.

Comments
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Heidi aka MissFuzzy   |2010-03-03 11:15:19
And ironically enough, an article in Urban on Monday said moving abroad makes it much more difficult for Danes to get hired once back in Denmark.
tomnashdk   |2010-03-03 11:35:16
Am I the only one getting a good laugh out of this?

Danish thinking: nearly half of Danes want to leave the country, but, but, but... close the door and don't let those damned foreigners in while we are gone!

:D
JFD   |2010-03-03 14:39:21
I actually see this as progress. I work in private equity and therefore I interact with a lot of highly professional Danes with international experience. Those who have international experience wear it as a badge of honor and it does in fact lend more credibility to their bio's and competencies.

Additionally, Danes have good reason to be proud of Denmark because it is a wonderful country (countrary to my constant bitching about taxes). However it is not the end-all, be-all of existance. If more Danes live abroad, then perhaps more will come back with a greater persepctive that the DK way of doing things isn't as great as they think it is.

However, one can't help thinking that necessity is the mother of invention here and the rise in numbers is simply because the financial crisis has limited many peoples upward mobility within DK and are forced to look outside out little country here.

Regardless, this is positive news.
tomnashdk  - JFD said...   |2010-03-03 20:31:24
"If more Danes live abroad, then perhaps more will come back with a greater persepctive that the DK way of doing things isn't as great as they think it is."

There is a lot of truth to that statement. Every single Dane I have ever met who has spent any significant amount of time outside of Denmark, and I do not mean weeks on vacation but months or years working and living, comes home with a much different opinion of their country and its people. They are often more harsh with respect to Denmark's foibles than we foreigners could ever be.

I agree with JFD that more Danes need to get out for a while, especially in light of the fact that some fresh thinking is required if little Denmark is going to survive in a global economy.
 

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