Job rotation

Under the job rotation scheme private and public companies are entitled to receive a job rotation allowance when an employee temporarily participates in continuing education/upskilling and an unemployed is hired as a substitute for the employee during the training period. The company pays the employees their usual salary for the entire training period, as well as any expenses related to the course. The temporary employee must receive a salary according to the labour agreement for the hours for which they are employed.

The job rotation allowance is EUR 25.45 (DKK 189.51, 2019 level)) per hour for both public and private companies (the amount is adjusted annually on 1 January and announced by the Danish Agency for Labour Market and Recruitment). The benefit is paid to the employer for each hour that an employee is in training and a temporary worker is employed at the same time.

The Ministry of Employment is the authority issuing the relevant legal framework.

The rules for the job rotation allowance are described in the Act on Active Employment Initiatives (LAB) (chapter 22, sections 149-153).

It is usually the employer who decides in which private or publicly offered continuing training the employee can participate. However, there are certain requirements:

1. there must be continuing training: following section 149 of the Act on Active Employment Initiatives (LAB) the employee (regardless of age) must obtain strengthened competencies through continuing training for use in continuing his employment relationship with this current employer;
2. periodic training must be temporary: at the beginning of the course, it is assumed, that the employee returns to his workplace with improved skills after completing continuing training;
3. continuing training must be publicly or privately offered: the participation must not be limited to employees in a particular company, or organisation. Thus, in-company training organised by an employer cannot be subsidised. Persons outside the company need to have equal access to participate in the training. If this is not the case, the continuing training does not qualify for the job rotation allowance; for example, the conditions are not met if a public or private employer arranges and conducts training exclusively for its employees, which outsiders cannot access. Further, continuing training conducted for specific job tasks (e.g. by a supplier of machines or cleaning supplies, who conducts training for employees at a public or private workplace but for its specific job tasks) also does not meet the criteria for the job rotation scheme. The continuing training should help the employee who participates in it to acquire applicable skills also to other workplaces. However, the rules do not prevent continuing training from taking place extraordinarily with the employer. This could happen if a private or public employer buys all offered places on a training course offered publicly so that everyone can register, but where it is agreed with the education institution that the training course takes place at a specific workplace for practical, transport or other reasons.
4. continuing training must not be part of vocational training: the employer does not receive a job rotation allowance if the employee participates in vocational training following the Act on Vocational Training, including vocational training for adults (EUV), or the Act on maritime education, or it is continuing training, which, following a decision of the Board of Directors of the Employers' Reimbursement System (AUB), can be equated with vocational training.

The following target groups can be employed as temporary workers in job rotation processes:

1. recipients of unemployment benefits;
2. recipients of cash benefits;
3. recipients of training aid;
4. transitional benefit recipients outside the induction programme;
5. recipients of self-support and repatriation allowance or transitional allowance covered by the self-support and return programme or the introduction programme;
6. sickness benefit recipients who are not in employment or self-employment;
7. persons in job clarification processes who are not in a job or running a self-employed business;
8. persons in resource flows;
9. young people not in employment, education or training (NEETs);
10. migrants and refugees.

The temporary employee must have been unemployed for at least six months before the job rotation and be approved by the job centre.