Venstre (The Liberal Party) has presented a new proposal to reassess early retirement benefits for immigrants in vulnerable residential areas to increase the labor supply. The party believes that many of the non-Western immigrants currently receiving early retirement benefits could potentially return to the labor market, either full-time or part-time. The proposal was presented in an interview with Jyllands-Posten, where Venstre’s chairman Troels Lund Poulsen and vice-chairman Stephanie Lose participated.
“We can see that especially in some of the vulnerable residential areas, there is a very high percentage of non-Western immigrants on early retirement. We want to turn the situation around to see how many of them still cannot work,” says Troels Lund Poulsen.
Venstre argues that such a reassessment will not only benefit the individuals involved by bringing them back to work but also strengthen the Danish economy. The proposal is not new, as Venstre already in 2021 proposed a similar review of early retirees in vulnerable residential areas as part of a larger immigration initiative.
The list of vulnerable residential areas where immigrants could potentially have their early retirement benefits reassessed in 2023 includes Vollsmose in Odense, Gellerupparken in Aarhus, and Sundparken in Horsens. Venstre’s initiative aims to integrate more people into the labor market and thus increase the overall labor supply in Denmark.