Fewer Danish companies taking production downtime in July

Factories are no longer sending all employees home for a summer break at the same time

Fewer Danish manufactories are taking three weeks of production downtime during the month of July and continue as usual.

While in the past, the vast majority of Danish companies used to close the entire production down for three weeks during the summer and send employees home on factory holiday, this tradition has slowly been changing.

In 2000, the Danish industry produced 18 percent less than normal during the summer, but last year the drop was only 8.5 percent, according to figures from Statistics Denmark.

READ MORE: Trip to Jordan reveals opportunities for Danish companies

Well automatised
“Danish companies are in an increasingly fierce competition with companies from other countries to sell their goods,” Morten Granzau Nielsen, the economic policy director at Dansk Industri, told DR.

“[But] the Danish manufactories are some of the most automatised. And when you have robots and machines, it is easy to handle production – for a short time – with fewer employees.”

According to the vacation act Ferieloven, the Danes have the right to hold three consecutive weeks of holiday in the period from May 1 to September 30.





  • How internationals can benefit from joining trade unions

    How internationals can benefit from joining trade unions

    Being part of a trade union is a long-established norm for Danes. But many internationals do not join unions – instead enduring workers’ rights violations. Find out how joining a union could benefit you, and how to go about it.

  • Internationals in Denmark rarely join a trade union

    Internationals in Denmark rarely join a trade union

    Internationals are overrepresented in the lowest-paid fields of agriculture, transport, cleaning, hotels and restaurants, and construction – industries that classically lack collective agreements. A new analysis from the Workers’ Union’s Business Council suggests that internationals rarely join trade unions – but if they did, it would generate better industry standards.

  • Novo Nordisk overtakes LEGO as the most desirable future workplace amongst university students

    Novo Nordisk overtakes LEGO as the most desirable future workplace amongst university students

    The numbers are especially striking amongst the 3,477 business and economics students polled, of whom 31 percent elected Novo Nordisk as their favorite, compared with 20 percent last year.