There is a shortage of qualified labour, there is a lack of apprenticeships and student places, and the public employment system does not work. This presents three problems at once. And that really doesn’t work. And yet… Femern Agency solves three problems at once: They recruit employees, they provide apprenticeships and student places, and they are actually a public employment effort.
STAR, STUK and the two South Sea municipalities
Femern Agency is a collaboration between the Agency for Labor Market and Recruitment (STAR), the Agency for Education and Quality (STUK), Lolland Municipality, and Guldborgsund Municipality. From the site hut on Strandholmsvej at the construction site in Rødbyhavn, the five employees help the Fehmarn contractors get the labor and apprentices they need. The assignment is quite simple: Provide as many Danish workplaces and apprenticeships as possible.
And it actually seems to be going quite well. Around 40% of the employees on the construction site are Danish, and in total there are, at the time of writing, at least 56 Danish apprentices working – and there are prospects for more. The secret is not a secret at all, and it’s actually not that complicated if you ask the boss, Per Bech Grønning:
Physical presence better than spreadsheets
– It’s all a question of physical presence. You cannot run this in a spreadsheet from an office in Copenhagen. The consortia and contractors must be able to drop by and have a cup of coffee and a chat, and we have to know what is in demand – both now and six months from now, says Per Bech Grønning.
50 percent adult apprentices
One of the things that Per Bech Grønning is particularly proud of is that half of the apprentices are adult apprentices. In fact, the average age of an apprentice at Femern is 27 years, and the range is from 16 to 43 years. Another thing they can boast about at Femern Agency is the recruitment effort. The positions are filled, and the job centers in both Lolland and Guldborgsund municipalities will have fewer customers. Many of the jobs are not permanent, but the employees do not return to the unemployment queue:
– We procured machine operators for Femern Belt Contractors (FBC). Now it is said that fewer machine operators are needed, but that is not so strange when they are about to finish digging the trench. And those machine operators will not be unemployed, but will move on to other jobs, says Per Bech Grønning.
The job center manager recruits
The Femern Agency manager has a record as a job center manager in Guldborgsund Municipality, and it is knowledge and experience from the employment system that – combined with a large network – is the background for the apparent success, he says:
– You could have just moved the job center down here. And we are actually a job center. But my employees’ own experiences and networks mostly lead us to do recruitment instead of check-ups and meetings. A lot of what we thought we were going to do, we are not doing at all. And overall, things are going well, but it has been difficult. The consortia are large organizations, and we have had to get to know each other and the project. But now we’re here, and that’s what it’s all about – the physical presence, Per Bech Grønning tells us, and finally sends an open coffee invitation to the SICE-Cobra consortium, which has landed the contract to install the technology in the tunnel:
– But I will see them Thursday, he concludes.
