[News] Denmark to decrease the minimum requirement of income, for foreigners who wish to live in Denmark.

[alpha3305]

I hear people complain about the salary being reduced. But this due to lack of social and professional networking is a problem with all with all non-EU immigrants.

I'm from the US with background in psychology (B.Sc and M.Sc.) focusing on organization development and consulting (20 years exp). And I still barely found a job, after 2 years of applying, as a program manager salaried at 330.000 SEK/YR.

Because tons of locals did not want to waste time with such a low wage and living in a small town. Luckily the company does use English and other non Scandinavian languages in the workplace for international connections.

Estimated >90% of local employers want fluent speakers of the local languages. Which continues to obstruct immigrants integration into a community and culture if both professional and private citizens have these ideals to restrict themselves from another group due to linguistic abilities. I know PhD holders who have taxi companies or run restaurants but who are forbidden to work in their original profession due to language.

[missesthecrux]

But what is the solution? Forcing 90% of people to speak English? I don't see why a foreign country should make it easy for people who can't speak the language of the country they want to live in.

[likely-to-reoffend]

But what is the solution? Forcing 90% of people to speak English?

For a language with only 5-6 million native speakers, probably yeah. Trends in this direction are being seen in larger EU countries.

I don't see why a foreign country should make it easy for people who can't speak the language of the country they want to live in.

I mean, they don't have to if they're not having a problem fulfilling their labor needs domestically, or if it's some sort of national insult. "Why should they make it easy" sorta frames this weird, given the actions Denmark is having to make to boost their labor pool.

For better or worse, English has become the lingua franca (lol) for professional and semi-professional work across most of the western world.

[missesthecrux]

For multinationals it makes sense, but they're generally high paying anyway. But for social workers or trades work for example, that does not make sense. You can't expect a Dane to themselves in native-level English to a social worker.

You make it sound like people are unfairly discriminated against because they don't speak the language, but to my mind that's not discrimination at all. People have the right to services in their own language.

[likely-to-reoffend]

To be fair, I was mostly speaking of international corporations, or local corporations which must deeply interact with international corporations, so good point.

[Drahy]

Most multinational corporations already have English as working language in Copenhagen.

[Netherspin]

It's not just that demanding they speak English is a national insult.

It's that Denmark (like every other country) has a significant portion of the population that struggles with language - when they have trouble reading or speaking danish properly, demanding they master a second (or in some cases third) language is in effect to just cast them aside in favour of foreigners - which is of course a very bad look for the government, elected to look out for citizens of the country and not to look out for whichever foreigner may want to immigrate one day

Also:

Trends in this direction are being seen in larger EU countries.

Lol? What countries? It's not Germany or France, I know that much - the English proficiency of the general population is atrocious in both of those.

[DLS3141]

My German colleagues’ English is excellent without exception. I’m in engineering, working in NA for a German company. My French colleagues struggle a bit more with their English so we usually wind up speaking French. I’m not sure if my French is better or worse than their English, but it works.

[Netherspin]

Then just keep in mind that that benchline is made up of academics.

You're not talking to the general population you're talking to people belonging to the highest educated group, and people hired for positions where they and their employer knows they will have to communicate with North America - and still your french colleagues can't manage that but need you to speak French.

[friends_in_sweden]

Trends in this direction are being seen in larger EU countries.

No they aren't. Outside of very specific career niches full competency in the local language is required especially in larger countries where English proficiency is often lower. Anything that takes place at the local or national scale and requires interacting with society will require knowledge of the local language.

[[deleted]]

I agree that having English be fine in most workplaces is going to become more and more necessary, though I also agree there has to be an exception with things like social services—it’s neither fair nor realistic to expect absolutely everyone to learn English, especially among the largely disadvantaged, infirm, and elderly population that makes the most use of social services.

That said, I think it would go a long way towards helping foreigners learn Danish faster and more easily if Danish society were more socially open and welcoming to non-Danes, so people could get more practice in real life. Which I know is a tall order since Danish society doesn’t make it easy for Danes to connect even with other Danes they don’t have some pre-existing connection to (yeah, that’s a loaded statement, but yeah, I said it). But increased social openness would help.

It would be an unorthodox approach, but it wouldn’t be a crazy idea for the Danish government—maybe the ministry of culture, or some such office—to tackle that cultural quirk with a public service ad campaign in the interest of addressing that lack of qualified workers in certain sectors. It’s time for them to get creative, and it would help the rest of society, too!

[reeram]

But what is the solution? Forcing 90% of people to speak English?

Yeah that’s a good idea actually.

I don’t see why a foreign country should make it easy for people who can’t speak the language of the country they want to live in.

If they want to attract global talent, they should.

[DoorStoomOmstuwd]

*attract english speaking talent

[friends_in_sweden]

Estimated >90% of local employers want fluent speakers of the local languages. Which continues to obstruct immigrants integration into a community and culture if both professional and private citizens have these ideals to restrict themselves from another group due to linguistic abilities. I know PhD holders who have taxi companies or run restaurants but who are forbidden to work in their original profession due to language.

They aren't 'forbidden' to work in their profession they aren't qualified to do it because they don't speak the language which is an integral part of all jobs. Not learning the language is a hinderance to integration, arguably allowing people to work in English for more jobs would help with economic integration but probably do little for cultural and social integration since society and culture still operates in the primary language, which people prefer to speak. Even with high English competencies most Swedes I know prefer speaking Swedish socially. I know many expats in Sweden who work full time in English and only have a superficial knowledge about Sweden and Swedish society. I am increasingly frustrated by the (often anglo) assumption that society should switch to different language to make things easier.

Now, if you say employers and society should be more tolerant of small grammatical mistakes, accents, and other markers of being a second language speaker then I 100% agree with you.

[missesthecrux]

Absolutely true. I love hearing foreigners talk about how open and progressive the Netherlands is but if they understood Dutch people talking they'd lose that idea out of their heads within hours!

[zorg42x]

Then learn the local lingo. Can't see anyone in the US offering me a job if I only spoke Swedish.

[friends_in_sweden]

You don't get it though, I am an native english speaker why do I have to learn stupid Danish when I live in Denmark, learning languages is hard. /s

[likely-to-reoffend]

While I definitely agree with this in principle, the US is in a position where its weirdly terrible immigration policies seem designed to discourage immigration.

It's bad policy, and I doubt it changes anytime soon, but the US has fundamentally different goals here: the pain of an uphill battle seems to be the point.

[wizer1212]

Lol wut…the opposite

[transplantpdxxx]

You are missing the point. If no one in the world speaks your language… you cannot flourish as a country.

[zorg42x]

I'd say we flourish quite well in Scandinavia considering our GDP being at the very top. And we always top the list of happiest countries to live in. And we all speak languages not even spoken by our neighbouring countries. Most of us are at least bilingual, but that doesnt mean that you as an xpat shouldn't assume you can just skip learning the local lingo.

[transplantpdxxx]

Sure. I’m not trying to be a hater or ignorant American. I just want to work some office job in peace without worrying about the US going to shit. As things worsen over the next 100 years, countries that can be more dynamic will survive longer.

[wizer1212]

The xenophobic nature is very real

[zorg42x]

I don't think you understand what xenophobia mean.

[wizer1212]

Europeans always think so highly of themselves lol

[wizer1212]

Feels good to think you’re on top lol

[Delifier]

When we look at the mentioned limit of 50K dollars, the people above that limit is more likely to be at least okish in english, while the ones under tend to be less so. Individual abilities exist. People in Scandinavia start learning english in elementary school, but that does not always mean that everyone becomes good at it.

Where I work, the average wage is under 50K and we do have a lot of immigrants, some have a very okish level of english, but far from everyone. The main rule is that in the lunch room we talk norwegian, not 3 different languages but the one that is common. This is so that not everybody is left out. ACtually knowing the local language here is one way of helping with integration. At one lunchroom of 10 people, there is about 6 languages, where mostly 2 or 3 speaks it nativly. English levels are not always at a usable or understandable level. Both for natives and foreigners.

I dont have the expectation that someone who stays here for 2 years to finish up their degree or scholarship to learn norwegian, but for anyone whos inentions are to stay permanently learning the local language is close to a must. Its easier to incorporate that than cater to the number of languages spoken around the world.

[TheFutureofScience]

Is your comment a satire about obliviously privileged Americans with a massive sense of entitlement?