Trade Union and Unemployment Insurance Fund

Most Danish employers and wage earners are organized. You are under no obligation to be a member of a trade union, but in many places of work, your colleagues expect you to sign up. If possible, ask your colleagues or search on the internet for information about trade unions within your line of business. Here you can see more about being a member of a trade union.

Most wage earners are also members of an unemployment insurance fund. This is a kind of insurance where - after a certain period in a job - you may earn the right to receive unemployment benefits for up to two years if you lose your job and become unemployed. However, there are a number of conditions, which must be complied with to receive benefits in the case of unemployment.

Here you can see a list of UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE FUNDS and on CITIZEN.DK you can see the requirements to be met if you are to receive unemployment benefits or other public benefits because of unemployment. The Link pages are only available in Danish, so use Google Translate for translation. 

In Denmark everybody is entitled to a state pension or a pension due to sickness, but some wage earners take out extra insurances even if they have a pension scheme already, and in some lines of business a pension scheme is also part of the collective agreement for the area. For more information, go to INSURANCES.

Besides, in Denmark it is obligatory for companies to take out a commercial insurance covering the employees in case of industrial injury.