Foreign graduates end up doing cleaning work

The ‘green card’ scheme, aimed at attracting highly skilled manpower to this country, has been dismissed as a fiasco, report seven59.dk and other media.

A new survey of foreign graduates and specialists who’ve been granted residency in Denmark since 2008 reveals that eight out of ten end up in menial work such as cleaning, low-paid ‘off the books’ jobs in the service industry, or even unemployment.

Author of the new report, sociologist Mia Mortensen of the University of Copenhagen, said there’s never been as many highly-qualified cleaners as now.

Green card scheme not functioning as intended

”They arrive with high expectations of a job that matches their qualifications but often end up scrubbing floors,” she said. ”Many of them have left behind a good job in their own country to come here but it invariably goes wrong.”

Employment Minister Mette Frederiksen declined to comment on the findings of the new survey but acknowledged that ”the green card scheme in its present form isn’t functioning as intended” and needs updating so companies are able to attract the specific manpower they need.

Read the original article (in Danish) here.

universitypost@adm.ku.dk

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