Many thousand of Swedes flock across the bridge to Denmark for work every day, but now Copenhagen is trying to tailor the country’s labour market ‘flexicurity’ to a new reality of sluggish growth and rising unemployment that could see effects on both sides of the sound.
In Copenhagen’s central station, thousands of Swedes step off the train each morning to head for jobs that many say they could not be found on the Swedish side of the border.Although the workers come from different backgrounds, many from the immigrant-rich city of Malm, they agree on one thing: being hired in Denmark is easier than in Sweden.”Here you could just talk to the employers to see if they were hiring. In Sweden it seemed like you needed more contacts to find a job,” said Denny Crona, a 25-year-old sales clerk in the Copenhagen airport who has been making the 30-minute commute for more than four years.The Danish model of mixing flexibility for employers, who can hire and fire personnel easily, with social security for workers, was credited with virtually eradicating unemployment in the Nordic nation, before the financial crisis hit.The system differs markedly from those in neighbouring Sweden and Germany, where terminating an employee is often expensive and cumbersome.If workers who lose their jobs receive generous benefits and are offered courses and training schemes that help them improve their skills, they will be less inclined to demand a high level of job security, the Danish argument goes.In recent years, flexicurity has garnered attention across Europe, especially in countries beset by high youth unemployment.Italian lawmakers looked to Denmark earlier this year before passing legislation that would make it easier to fire workers while also making employees eligible for a modernized welfare scheme.But back in Copenhagen, politicians are trying to tailor flexicurity to a new reality of sluggish growth and rising unemployment in the wake of a property market crash that has shaken the country’s banking system.With unemployment at 7.7 percent of the workforce in the third quarter, Denmark is scrambling to find jobs for thousands of people whose unemployment benefits are set to expire.The period when a person is eligible for the country’s famously generous job seekers’ allowance was halved in 2010, scaled back to two years from four years, by the previous centre-right government. It rolled back a crucial “security” component of the system.Trine Bramsen, a member of parliament for the ruling Social Democrats, admits that budget cuts means flexicurity is facing challenges. Yet she claims statistics show that most of the people who previously found a job towards the end of the four-year benefits period are now doing so after less than two years.”As Danish social democrats, we don’t believe it’s in a person’s best interest to spend a long period of time outside the job market,” she said.”We would rather offer these people the opportunity to retrain as something else.”To that end, the government has said that anyone whose benefits are about to expire will be able to extend them for another six months on the condition that they apply for training that makes them more employable in the future.The opposition claims it is merely trying to cover up a failed jobs pact between the government, local governments and private employers.In October, the government struck a deal with the Confederation of Danish Employers to create 12,500 jobs that would be earmarked for those who have been unemployed for two years and who are about to “fall out of the system” of generous benefits, Bramsen said.So far, that effort has fallen short of its target, with not a single job vacancy being earmarked for the long-term unemployed in many parts of the country.However, Danish unemployment might have been even higher than it is today if it weren’t for flexicurity, argued Soeren Kaj Andersen of the University of Copenhagen’s Employment Relations Research Centre”We can see that the number of jobs that have disappeared in Denmark during the crisis has been high compared to the rest of northern Europe, but so has the number of jobs being created,” he said.In other countries, it would have been more difficult for those losing their jobs to be matched with a new one, he added.But Martin gerup, the managing director of free market-leaning think tank CEPOS, said there was little evidence to suggest that high spending on unemployment benefits and professional training was needed to achieve those outcomes.The UK has had a high level of labour mobility and, historically, a relatively low unemployment rate, but without Denmark’s high level of public spending, he noted.”There is nothing to suggest that you can’t make changes to one parameter (benefits) without the other parameter (labour mobility) changing,” he said. AFP/The Local/atFollow The Local on Twitter … Read More
Danish labour law attracts Swedish workers
Happy holidays. Stay sane!
Dear everybody,Well, heck, wow, gee. I’ve spent 11 years now writing this column. Why? Because it’s interesting and challenging. Because it’s a chance to learn about people. Because your stories are amazing. Because Salon has health insurance! (And is an amazing group of people.)Random thoughts for the end of the year: Weird dates. We had 12-12-12, now we’ve got 12-21-12. I’ll miss the weird numbers of 2012 when we go to 2013, and then we can look back to 1913!For the new year I have a definite plan for the novel now. It’s weird how long I’ve been talking about it — and working on it. It started in 1995 when I started taking the N Judah from out by the beach to a temp job downtown. Money was low, we were newly married and I was trying to keep up my end of the economic bargain even though in my heart I just wanted to be a bum and write all day. So this story started taking shape in my notebook as I would ride the N Judah — the old Boeing cars that had the single seat.Continue Reading… … Read More
The Drones Are Here, and They Brought Presents
Does anyone love their work more than the folks who work on robots? As a nod to the holiday season … Read More
Anonymous: Project Mayhem 2012 calls employees to target their work environment in December
The latest message from Anonymous is a call to all people that work in an environment that stores information on … Read More
Drugmakers Step Up Search For Hearing Loss Medicines
By Caroline Copley and Ben Hirschler ZURICH/LONDON, Dec 2 (Reuters) – When Swiss biotech firm Auris Medical wanted to recruit patients to test its experimental hearing loss drug, it decided to enlist partygoers deafened by firecrackers on New Year’s Eve. In the weeks leading up to Dec. 31, 2005 it advertised in the subway and on radio stations in Munich and Berlin, urging victims of sudden firecracker-induced hearing loss to turn up at designated clinics for treatment on January 1. “We had just one single day of enrolment, we didn’t know how many people would show up,” Thomas Meyer, managing director of Auris, told Reuters. Luckily, his gamble paid off and the small private company is now one of the leaders in what has been an empty space for the pharmaceutical industry. Auris managed to recruit enough people to show that its compound AM-111 posed no safety risk and has since successfully completed a mid-stage trial in acute sensorineural hearing loss, or sudden deafness, involving 210 patients. While there is no guarantee that its drug, which is injected through the eardrum, will pass muster in final-stage tests, the progress by Auris and a clutch of rival biotech firms is making large pharmaceutical companies sit up and take notice. There are currently no approved disease-modifying drugs for hearing loss, which affects nearly a third of people aged 65 to 74 and half of those over 75. But the science is developing and investor interest is growing, piqued by the huge commercial success of recent new treatments for sight loss, such as Lucentis from Novartis and Roche and Eylea from Regeneron and Bayer. British charity Action on Hearing Loss conservatively puts the potential Western market for new drugs at $4.6 billion a year – a figure that could grow quickly as ageing populations swell the ranks of those with hearing problems. NEGLECTED FIELD “It’s one of the few areas that, as yet, hasn’t really been tackled by the drugs industry,” said Kate Bingham, managing partner at SV Life Sciences Advisers, a venture capital firm with investments in new drugs for both eyes and ears. Bingham sits on the board of Autifony Therapeutics – a hearing loss firm spun out of GlaxoSmithKline in which the British drugmaker retains a stake. Historically, hearing loss has received little attention from Big Pharma, given the lack of obvious targets for drug intervention, the difficulties of running clinical trials and a widespread belief that most deafness could not be reversed. Now the big companies are getting involved, although the work is early-stage. “A drug that is therapeutic and priced right could be quite a blockbuster. That’s why they’ve put their toe in the water,” said Jonathan Kil, chief medical officer at Seattle-based Sound Pharmaceuticals, which is enrolling young iPod users in a trial of an oral drug for noise-induced hearing loss. U.S. giant Pfizer is arguably the most advanced of the big players, with a drug in initial Phase I clinical testing trial for age-related sensorineural hearing loss that looks to enhance the function of existing hair cells. Some of its biggest rivals are laying bets, too. Last year French drugmaker Sanofi inked a two-year research deal with privately held Dutch biotech firm Audion Therapeutics to develop small molecule drugs to improve hearing. In October, Roche joined forces with venture capital firm Versant Ventures and biotech Inception Sciences to find molecules targeting ear hair cell protection and regeneration in the cochlea, the spiral-shaped cavity in the inner ear. Cross-town competitor Novartis, meanwhile, struck a 2010 deal potentially worth more than $213 million with U.S. biotech GenVec to develop gene-based treatments to replace hair cells in the ear that transmit sound. “We’re looking at restoration as our main line of work and we’re interested in whether there are chemicals that might also play this role instead of having to introduce a gene,” said Novartis research head Mark Fishman. “This is an area that’s a bit more futuristic and ultimately restoring the hair cells will be the cure.” EYES AND EARS Unlike new eye drugs, which work by inhibiting an unwanted process, hearing drugs will need to restore damaged function – a more difficult proposition. Experts say the first drugs will target niche areas, such as damage caused by loud noise or as a result of chemotherapy. “Hearing loss is not just one condition. It’s like cancer – there are lots of different types and there is work to be done to segment the market,” said Ralph Holme, head of biomedical research at Action on Hearing Loss. Heading the field for noise-induced hearing loss is South Illinois University, which has launched a late-stage trial with the U.S. military for an drug to increase protection for people exposed to very noisy environments like soldiers. Canada’s Adherex also has a late-stage trial to test a drug that may protect against hearing loss caused by platinum-based anti-cancer agents in children. While protective treatments could become available within the next few years, regenerative approaches – such as injecting stem cells into the ear or chemically intervening to switch on genes that control cell growth – are much further off. Despite recent promising tests in gerbils, the potential to replicate this in humans is still uncertain, said Pascal Senn, an ear specialist at the University of Berne. “If something grows inside the ear, you must be sure that it doesn’t grow excessively or form tumours. There are a lot of roadblocks that need to be overcome in this field. It’s highly risky, but I think it’s also the hottest area,” he said. One intriguing possibility for the future is the convergence of future drugs and devices. Hearing aid manufacturers have certainly not been deaf to the noises from the pharma sector. Sonova, the world’s largest maker of hearing aids, has invested in two start-up companies – one in the United States for drugs to protect hearing and another Swiss biotech working on a treatment for acute tinnitus. It bought U.S. cochlear implant manufacturer Advanced Bionics in 2009 in a bid to increase its focus on the inner ear and understand how drug treatments could work with implants. “It will be interesting whether the innovation will be driven by pharma companies moving in or whether the hearing aid companies will branch out,” said Auris’ Meyer. (Editing by Philippa Fletcher)Read More…
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UK ISPs Block Pirate Bay’s Artist Promotions
This week saw the launch of The Promo Bay, an artist promotion initiative supported by The Pirate Bay crew.
The website is entirely dedicated to promoting the work of independent musicians, filmmakers and other content creators. They get to showcase their work to an audience of hundreds and thousands of people at no cost.
Initially, the promos were submitted through The Pirate Bay’s website but when the project grew too big it was outsourced to Aussie entrepreneur Will Dayble. He will now be in charge of sifting through the thousands of submissions and picking the best ones to feature on the Pirate Bay site.
However, if something doesn’t change, those submissions won’t include those from the many thousands of UK artists who might want to benefit from this unique opportunity.
It turns out that the Promo Bay website is being blocked be several Internet providers, showing a similar message people get when they try to access the Pirate Bay site. TorrentFreak was able to confirm the blocks for BT, Virgin Media and BE, but it’s possible that more providers are also blocking the Promo Bay.
Promo Bay locked for copyright infringement
The most plausible explanation is that the Promo Bay domain is listed on the same blocklist that’s used to enforce the Pirate Bay blockade.
In April, the UK High Court ruled that several of the country’s leading ISPs must censor The Pirate Bay since the site and its users breach copyright on a grand scale. Soon after, Virgin Media, BT, Everything Everywhere, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, BE and O2 all blocked access to the world’s largest BitTorrent site. Several of the site’s IP-addresses and domain names were rendered inaccessible.
Promo Bay’s Will Dayble believes his site has ended up on some of the ISPs’ blocklists “by accident”.
“These providers are pretty monolithic and old school, I’d imagine it’s just a broad-scale block against a bunch of Pirate Bay properties and we fell under the net. I doubt it’s a pointed move against the Promo Bay in particular,” Dayble tells TorrentFreak.
If that’s the case then the ISPs in question may reconsider their blockade as the Promo Bay is helping, not hurting content creators. Also, the website is hosted on separate servers that have never been controlled by the Pirate Bay crew.
Whatever the reason, Dayble hopes that BT, Virgin, BE and others will correct their mistakes so that UK artists can submit their work as well. “Here’s hoping some clever tech in their ranks does something about it,” Dayble says.
Time will tell whether the ISPs in question will pick up the hint. Otherwise the Promo Bay may need a proxy of its own.
Source: UK ISPs Block Pirate Bay’s Artist Promotions
Could the Nate Silver approach work in Hollywood?
If the recent political era has taught us anything, it has reiterated the enduring truth of George Santayana’s aphorism about memory and duplication. Whether once again watching tax cuts fail to deliver a promised economic boost or witnessing more wars fail to deliver stability, we are reminded that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”But then, as much as those haunting words are meant as a warning, technology is today coding Santayana’s principle into society’s operating system, as if mimicking history is an admirable objective. Indeed, whether it’s movie studios, record companies, government intelligence agencies or corporate human resources departments, algorithms that use the past to predict — and create — the future are making more and more decisions.For those employed in creative endeavors, it’s comforting to believe that technology’s use in the information economy begins and ends with the kind of straightforward processes (data entry, dictation, etc.) that require little cognitive analysis and even less artistic thinking. Yet, as Christopher Steiner shows in his mind-blowing new book “Automate This,” algorithms taking into account past commercial successes are being deployed by the film and music industries to choose which movie and album proposals will be produced. What’s more, an increasing number of the algorithms’ selections have proven profitable.Continue Reading… … Read More
