Denmark - Matching skills to jobs

"I'm twenty years old. I'm an apprentice electrician. I used to go to the gymnasium but I missed working with my hands and doing practical things so I changed to become an electrician. It's fun. I do theoretical work at school and then I go out and do it in practical when I work." Denmark is famed for it's bicycles, LEGO, it's Little Mermaid, and more. But at a time when skills mismatch between labour supply and demand is on the rise, another Danish tradition has enabled youth like Anders to weather this storm. "One of the biggest gains of the vocational training system is that young people are working very closely with what is happening now, out in the companies. So you don't have this mismatch." "One of the reasons why unemployment rates in Europe are high is that workers do not necessarily have the skills that are in demand in the labour market. This is of particular importance of course during the recovery, and it is also of particular importance for young people who receive a lot of their education and training before they enter the labour market." Plans to link the education sector with private companies, such as the Danish vocational training programmes, enable youth to ensure the skills they are learning are those in demand in the labour market. "You have a combination of going to school and being in a workplace. Normally you have four turns of going to school, going to work, going to school, and so on and so forth. And that helps the young people have a clearer view of what it's like going to work and they get real experience." "They're not there as sort of spectators, they're involved in production in the company, and what we realize is that after they finish their course then they can enter the workforce already being part of it." Danish companies understand the advantages that reaching out to educational institutes can bring; increasing productivity and innovation. "We are very interested in the education, so we follow it a lot and have conversations with the teachers. We are educating people for our own business furthermore, so we build our own skilled employees." "It's a win-win, a really win-win situation." But vocational training need not just be limited to technical fields. "They refer to office workers, service industries, and of course manufacturing industries and handicrafts. So you have a wide range of educations that are actually covered by this system." "It is important that in the recovery, workers have an opportunity to re-skill, upgrade their skills, so that they are in the best possible position to find a new job." The proof that this system works? Low youth unemployment and youth who are motivated and hopeful about their future. Able to enjoy the sun and each other. "Mostly in Denmark, if you work properly through your apprenticeship, then when you're finished with your education if the company likes you and has no reason to fire you they will keep you. And as far as I know I don't break too many stuff, so I hope they will keep me."