The Nordic labour market targeted for strategic review

20.11.14 | News
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Nordic co-operation in the employment sector needs to be further intensified. This is the opinion of the Nordic ministers for labour, who agreed at their meeting in Copenhagen on Thursday to commission a strategic review of the Nordic labour market.

"The Nordic Region is not just a regional part of the EU and EEA regulated labour market. We have made much more possible for our citizens - just look at the tens of thousands of Nordic citizens who daily commute over national borders in the region and successfully manage their everyday life accordingly", says Eygló Harðardóttir, minister responsible for employment in Iceland and chair of the Nordic Council of Ministers for Labour in 2014".

"We also know that we can do much more. I want it to be as easy to move between Reykjavik and Stockholm or Övertorneå as it is to move to a neighbouring town ten minutes away. Therefore, we are now commissioning a strategic review that will lead to number of concrete proposals the council of ministers can discuss and prioritise", says Eygló Harðardóttir.

"The Nordic model is challenged"

The Danish Minister for Employment, Henrik Dam Kristensen, who takes over as Chairman of the Nordic Council of Ministers for Labour in 2015, underlines the importance of putting the review in a broader European perspective.

"The Nordic model with, amongst other things, tripartite agreements is under pressure, in that there are other competitive models in this area. To guarantee that the recommendations proposed are feasible, it is absolutely necessary to include a parallel analysis of the EU and EEA area", says Henrik Dam Kristensen.

According to the Nordic ministers for labour, the strategic review must be conducive to increased binding co-operation and must cover 

  • the sector's potential co-operation advantages in regard to co-operation in EU/EEA matters
  • the sector's potential co-operation in the future on other international matters, for example, in the OECD and ILO
  • increased focus on joint Nordic initiatives linked to the sector's goals which will promote employment and low unemployment, an inclusive working life and a good working environment
  • the role of tripartite agreements at Nordic level.

This will be the third Nordic analysis. The first was the Stoltenberg report on the potential for co-operation in Nordic defence and security co-operation (2009), written by the former Norwegian defence and foreign minister Thorvald Stoltenberg. The Könberg report which analysed the Nordic health care sector (2014), written by the former Swedish social minister Bo Könberg.

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