The Greenlandic welfare society is bleeding. Thousands of hands will disappear by 2050.
Summer is upon us, high sun and beautiful weather. Many people love to go for walks, grill or cook out in the mountains. Everything seems to breathe peacefully, and life goes on as usual. But behind the idyll hides a reality that many are either not aware of, or in helplessness choose to close their eyes to. But we all have a responsibility towards society, the community and the next generation.
The Greenlandic welfare society is bleeding. Thousands of hands will disappear by 2050.
Summer is upon us, high sun and beautiful weather. Many people love to go for walks, grill or cook out in the mountains. Everything seems to breathe peacefully, and life goes on as usual. But behind the idyll hides a reality that many are either not aware of, or in helplessness choose to close their eyes to. But we all have a responsibility towards society, the community and the next generation.
Precisely this bright summer time also marks the high season for our two most important industries: tourism and fishing.
It is here, in the middle of the busy mountain summer, that the lack of labor in recent years has become painfully obvious. The media and politicians have tried to address the problem, but it has always seemed half-hearted and without real solutions.
What should we do? Because the tasks in the fish factory, in the service professions, in the retirement homes, in the kindergartens, do not disappear by themselves, simply because we lack hands. Therefore, more and more foreign workers, primarily from Asia, are called in to keep the wheels turning. But does that mean we are building a parallel society behind the scenes? And has Greenland ever been good at integration? The problem is growing rapidly, and it now affects far beyond the fishing industry.
It affects the primary school. In an article a few months ago in AG, it is reported how children of Asian parents, who come here without being able to speak Greenlandic or Danish, experience defeat and lose motivation because the school system lacks resources. The lack of hands also paralyzes our daycare centers in everyday life. While the public sector lacks a real integration policy and focus, the private companies continue to bring in people from outside because it is necessary.
The figures from Statistics Greenland show that the crisis is alarming: Towards 2050, the total population is expected to fall to 53,500. Worse yet; the Greenlandic-born population shrinks significantly by almost 7,000 people (from 49,400 to 42,500). At the same time, the workforce loses 5,000 potential full-time workers, while the number of elderly people over the age of 65 increases by 3,500 citizens.
This means, among other things, that more people have to be supported, but fewer people have to pay tax. Here and now we need 600-1,000 employees per year, but towards 2040 we will need between 2,000 and 3,000 permanent hands in the welfare sector.
If there are no radical changes – for example in the way the block grant is regulated – we simply cannot maintain our welfare society. The population must be informed so that we can participate in the social debate on an informed basis.
Here, our public service media has a fixed task in rolling out the major debates between national politicians, municipal politicians and experts. Without an informed democratic debate, we cannot tackle the task.
Because how are we to live together, integrated between different peoples, in the Greenland of the future? Greenlanders, Danes, Filipinos, Thais? The answers require that we all take social responsibility now, before it is too late. But who is responsible for solving the problem?
