"Danish labour market policies and the Danish flexicurity model were feted during the 1990s when active labour market policies combined with economic policies were able to revitalize the Danish economy and to reduce unemployment from 12.0 per cent to 1.4 per cent by mid-2008. This article explains the background for this development, explains the major features of the Danish flexicurity model, and uses this to explain recent reform developments in Denmark. Investing in people and decentralization of the implementation of policies are important features of the relative success of Denmark's policies. The importance of taking the individual's competences and labour market experience into consideration as well as the importance of adapting active labour market polices to needs in the local labour market are lessons to be drawn from policy developments in Denmark. The article underlines that Denmark's policies are seen as structural policies that seek to adapt structures in the labour market, social benefit system and educational system to future challenges – and that for structural policies to be successful their timing with economic policies is important. This timing is thought to have been successful the 1990s, but it remains to be seen if this has been so in relation to the most recent reforms."

Support: Paper