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Record number of non-Western immigrants working: Forugh gets job after three years as unemployed | Politics | The DR Minister hopes that the development will continue, but emphasizes that there are still challenges. Af - It's mine. For three years she has been trying to get a permanent job. - It was difficult to get a job because I am not that good at Danish. Forugh Abadi has lived in Denmark for 17 years after she moved from Iran with her. Now she lives in Herlev with her 15-year-old daughter. - The most important thing for me is not to get help from the municipality. I want to make my own money, I want to spend my own money. It was very big for me to get this job, says Forugh Abadi. On April 1 this year, she was employed in a full-time position at a florist in Copenhagen - and figures from the Ministry of Immigration and Integration Affairs show that Forugh Abadi is far from The figures show that there have never been so many immigrants and their descendants in employment in the 11 years the survey has been made - and that the increase from 2020 to 2021 is also the highest ever. According to Frederik Thuesen, who is a senior researcher at Det National Research and Analysis Center for Welfare (), there may be several reasons why so many immigrants have found employment in recent years.- I think the main reason is that there is a lot going on in and in the Danish economy currently. And that means that and employers broadly in different demand, he says.He is positively surprised by the numbers, as it is usually a population group that has had a hard time getting out on.- I think there is a great potential, and I think one has also become more open to looking that way. We could also see under the corona that when you should have recruited a lot of pods in a flash, you also looked down at these groups of immigrants. How much of this is due to pods? - It's hard to say. I do not think it means that much in the big picture, because we also see it widely in the group of immigrants, so I actually think it is something we see, because there are many different people who demand it, says Frederik Thuesen and continues: - I think employers have become more open to hiring people with non-Western immigrant backgrounds, because that group has become a common part of the Danish labor market. Forugh Abadi has previously had various small jobs both as a gardener and cleaning assistant, but it has not been easy for her to find work in Denmark.- For many years after I finished my education, I worked in my home country. But when I moved here, I was very sad because I could not get in, she says. One of the biggest challenges for Forugh Abadi has been the language barrier. - It is very hard to apply for a job. I'm not that good at writing and spelling, so it was difficult to make applications and CVs. Is it also your own fault that you have not been good enough at learning Danish? - The Danish language is very, very difficult. Some grammar I do not really understand. In the beginning I went to school twice a week, but still it is still very difficult for me. So you have tried, do you think? - Yes, I have gone to school for many years to learn it. But it is very, very difficult, she says. Hear Forugh Abadi talk about her language challenges in the video below: Now Forugh Abadi has been working in the florist for a few weeks, and here she does not experience that language is a hindrance in her work. - Some of the customers are very patient and understand that I am a foreigner and do not speak the language so well. They understand well that I do not know all the Danish words for the flowers. It makes me really happy and gives me a lot of energy, she says. Minister of Foreign Affairs and Integration Mattias Tesfaye (S) looks very positively at the figures for immigrants at work. - I always look at statistics in the field of integration, and this is quite nice. There are many more - especially immigrants from the Middle East - who come to work, he says. also believes that the high employment rates are due to a good Danish economy - but according to him it is also due to a strict foreign policy. - We have had a low influx from the Middle East for some years now. This means that we can more easily make the integration work. Senior researcher at Frederik Thuesen also believes that one of the explanations for the good figures could be policy on residence permits, where it is, among other things, a requirement that you must have been in a job in three and a half years out of the last four years.- That, I think, can be quite hard, which also means that some of these people think a lot that it is very important to have a job, because otherwise can one risks being sent out of Denmark. For Minister of Foreign Affairs and Integration Mattias Tesfaye, however, it is clear that there are still challenges in the area. Do we have a problem - also with these new figures in hand - in relation to not Western immigrants working in Denmark? - Yes. The glass is only half full. There are still far too many - especially women with roots in countries around the Middle East - who are not in employment. But let's be happy that it's going in the right direction, he says.