It is a fixed task for Christiansborg to get more young people into the labor market, says Ellemann-Jensen.
– When we also know that within ten years we risk a shortage of around 100,000 skilled workers, and that several industries are screaming for labor. Yes, then there is something that is not connected in our society.
– We lack nimble heads and skilled hands at our vocational schools, while there is a struggle to get into the most coveted high schools.
– That is why we need to look at how we organize our youth educations so that it becomes attractive for more people to take an education, says Ellemann-Jensen.
He longs for the recently concluded political agreement – without the Liberal Party – on the distribution of high school students.
The new agreement will distribute high school students more according to parents’ income and less according to the current distance requirement. It should provide more mixed student composition at those colleges.
– For example, should there be a common entrance to colleges and vocational schools, and can we ensure more opportunities to study further once you have taken a vocational education?
– I think we will have to look in that direction. For the solution can never be to force the young people down into an excel sheet, as we have just seen with the government’s high school agreement.
– Where one kneels the free choice, and politically decides how the young people should be distributed in their educations. It is an ideological dead end, says Ellemann-Jensen.
The Liberal Party’s chairman also calls it a great challenge for society if there are too many unemployed immigrants.
– Because it slows down integration when you do not enter the labor market, but instead are stuck in a parallel reality, where you do not need to learn Danish or contribute to Danish society.
– It will cost us dearly in more than one sense if we do not succeed in using the recovery to get more immigrants into work, says Ellemann-Jensen.
He warns the government against raising benefits for unemployed immigrants when the government follows up on the work of the Benefits Commission. Among other things, the commission has recommended scrapping the cash benefit ceiling. It is the Left vertically opposed.
– Do not let a historic opportunity to get more people into the labor market be wasted by making it less attractive to take a job.
– Instead of raising benefits, we must raise our ambitions and look beyond just the next parliamentary election. Expect more from people and make a reasonable demand that law and duty must be followed in Denmark, he says.
Source: The Nordic Page