The Confederation of Danish Employers helped establish the Basic Integration Training Programme (IGU)

The Dansk Arbejdsgiverforening (DA), or the Confederation of Danish Employers, is the main organisation for 11 employers’ associations in the labour market and member of BusinessEurope. Through tripartite negotiations with other Danish stakeholders, the confederation helped to reach the agreement on Labour Market Integration in the spring of 2016.

The agreement was motivated by the low participation rates of refugees on the Danish labour market and contains 33 initiatives along two major themes:

1. Integration programmes with a sharper focus on jobs, including on occupation-oriented approaches to language training and a strengthening of services offered to companies hiring refugees
2. Introduction of the Basic Integration Training Programme (IGU), effective as of July 2016. Refugees joining the programme are paid a salary, work for at least 25 hours per week and take part in 20 weeks of training (such as relevant vocational training, Danish lessons, and other basic skills courses) during the 2-year asylum period. The target group is refugees and their family members aged between 18-40 years old who have been in Denmark for less than 5 years. IGU is meant to present new opportunities to municipalities, refugees and companies.

The confederation notes an increase in the number of employed refugees since the agreement came into effect. At the beginning of 2015, about 18% of the refugee population in the country had jobs, while in 2023, the figure has risen to over 50%.

In September 2023, the tripartite agreement was extended. Its scope also increased to now include refugees and all those aged 18–50 who arrived in Denmark via family reunification programmes and have resided in the country for up to 20 years. See the text of the updated agreement in Danish.