Eastern Europeans are flooding into Danish agriculture

Copenhagen Post:

The number of eastern Europeans working in Danish agriculture is on the rise and poses a threat its future, trade union 3F reported in its newsletter on Wednesday.

New figures from the National Labour Market Authority reveal that nearly a fifth of all employees on the nation's farms and other agricultural businesses come from an eastern European country.

The authority reported that in June additional 858 job permits were issued for eastern Europeans working in agriculture, bringing the total number up to 2,084.

3F said that if the figure was added to the 1,500 agricultural trainees from eastern Europe, the group now made up 18 percent of the nation's total agricultural workforce.

The trade union expressed its concerns about the increase in trainees from the east, as farmers had plenty of reasons to prefer them to Danish trainees.

'They are cheaper than Danish students, as they are only allowed to stay here for a year and a half and only get starting pay. In contrast, Danish students get pay raises during their four-year education,' said Morten Fischer-Nielsen, negotiation secretary for 3F's Green Group. 'The eastern European trainees are away from home, so they don't have much else to do than work. Even if they get paid for working overtime, the rate is still less than half of what Danes would get.'

Instead of focusing on their budgets, Fischer-Nielsen urged farmers to try to secure the future of Danish agriculture by hiring more of their compatriots as trainees.

'The agricultural sector should aim at educating tomorrow's Danish farmers and securing the sector in the future,' he said. 'If Denmark is to remain at the forefront of food products safety, we can't have loads of students from Ukraine working for one year, only to send them back home again.'

Agriculture, horticulture, and forestry claim more than a half of active employment permits for workers from new EU countries in eastern Europe.

East Europeans make inroads in agriculture