New Nuuk airport could provide lift for Greenland’s labour market

The new international airport in Nuuk which opens on 28 November will be a great boost to tourism. That is what the Greenlandic business community and Aaja Chemnitz expect She is a member of the Danish Parliament for Greenland’s ruling left-wing Inuit Ataqatigiit party, IA.

“Being able to fly non-stop to Nuuk will open up Greenland to the wider world in a completely new way. Tourism will be further boosted and it will also make it easier to transport Greenlandic fish to our export markets,” says Aaja Chemnitz.

This view is shared by Christian Keldsen, Director of the Greenland Business Association GE, the employer and interest organisation for small and large private companies in Greenland.

“The new airport in Nuuk will strengthen tourism and other activities like the export of fish by air. Those of us who live in Greenland can travel in and out cheaper and faster when we no longer need stopovers. This could also eventually attract more liberal professions like architects, lawyers and consultants.”

A labour market under pressure

Until now, international flights have meant stopovers in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland’s main air transport hub, because the runways in Nuuk and Ilulissat are too short to facilitate larger aircraft. 

That is why the Danish government and Greenland’s self-rule authority, Naalakkersuisut, agreed in 2018 to expand the Nuuk and Ilulissat airports. 

In 2023, most foreign workers were from the Phillippines, Iceland,  Sri Lanka and Poland. Source: Statistics Greenland.

The agreement was justified by the need to provide citizens with easier access to travel into and out of Greenland, and that larger airports would support business – including the tourism industry. 

Since then, a third airport expansion has begun in Qaqortoq in the south of Greenland, which is close to areas with potential for future mineral extraction. The Ilulissat expansion is delayed and expected to finish in 2025. The combined construction budget for the three airports is five billion Danish kroner (€617m).

Both Aaja Chemnitz and Christian Keldsen hope that easier access to air travel will also help ease the very high pressure on Greenland's labour market. Greenland is increasingly importing labour from abroad, particularly from Asian countries such as the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. The majority work in fish factories, cleaning, retail, and other service jobs.

Subsidised plane tickets

Right now, unemployment levels in Greenland are at a record low, not far from zero. In contrast, a relatively large proportion of Greenland's working-age population remains outside the labour market – a much larger share than in the rest of the Nordic countries. And a significant portion of Greenland's youth do not complete an education that would give them the skills they need to work.

Direct and cheaper air travel can help change this, hopes Aaja Chemnitz.

“The airport expansions represent a very important opportunity for more of Greenland’s youths to pursue higher secondary education in for instance Denmark. Direct flights will make it easier for them to keep in touch with families at home while studying. It can also increase the chances that they return to Greenland to work when they have finished their studies,” she says.

Nearly one in two (44 per cent) of youths who study outside of Greenland do not return at the end of their education, says Aaja Chemnitz. During the 2025 Danish budget negotiations, she therefore proposed that the national budget allocate funds so that Greenlanders studying in Denmark each receive 1000 Danish kroner (€134) to help cover plane tickets back home.

“When students maintain a stronger connection to Greenland during their studies, we could reduce the current brain drain from Greenland.”

Better study environment in Denmark

Aaja Chemnitz also spends her time in the Danish parliament pushing for more counselling for Greenlandic students in Danish schools and universities to reduce dropout rates. Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen (Social Democrats) also believes it is necessary to provide a better study environment for young Greenlanders in Denmark. 

Work on the new Ilulissat airport has been delayed and is now due to finish in 2025. Photo: Christian Sølbeck

“I hear about prejudice and exclusion from Greenlanders who live here and Greenlandic students. Many drop out of their studies,” said the Prime Minister during a parliamentary debate on the Danish Realm in the spring of 2024. 

At the time, she promised to take action to make the transition to Danish student environments better for Greenlandic students.

“This will benefit the young people but it will also of course benefit Greenland because if we can create a supporting framework around our educational programmes, more young people are likely to finish them. And perhaps they will return and use the skills that their country really, really needs,” said Mette Frederiksen.

19 nationalities

Greenland’s Business Association also sees the educational level among Greenlandic youths as a challenge and predicts it will remain so for a long time. GE believes there will be a need to import a lot of labour in the coming years, also after the airport expansion works have finished. 

“GE is pushing for an improvement in Greenland's education level, but it will take time and we will need to import labour also in the coming years. Fishers in Greenland would not be able to land their catch at all if there for instance were no Chinese or Philippine workers in the processing plants,” says Christian Keldsen.

5 to 6 per cent of Greenland’s labour force comes from Asia and the second generation of immigrants are now entering the labour market, explains Christian Keldsen. He would also like it to be easier for companies to obtain work permits for foreign labour more quickly.

The expansion of the airports has also to a large extent been carried out by foreign labour. According to GE, 19 nationalities have been involved in the expansion of Nuuk Airport.

A warning from economists

The latest report from Greenland's Economic Council for the first half of 2024 concludes that the influx of labour from abroad has been crucial for Greenland's recent economic growth. This growth has been driven by good years for the fishing industry, with high prices for North Atlantic fish and seafood.

The Economic Council, established by the Greenlandic self-government Naalakkersuisut, conducts independent analyses of Greenland’s economy. The Council’s latest report warns that the labour shortage is a major challenge for Greenland’s economy and it argues that improved education levels are “a crucial prerequisite” for a more self-sustaining Greenlandic economy. 

Previous reports from the Economic Council show that employment rates among specific educational groups in Greenland are comparable to those in Nordic countries. However, the main challenge is that a significant proportion of each generation in Greenland does not complete education programmes that give them the necessary skills

A similar warning appears in an analysis from Denmark's National Bank, published in November 2023. The bank identifies the educational level in Greenland as the primary reason for the lower employment rate compared to other countries.  

More than half of Greenland's population between the ages of 25 and 64 have no more than an elementary school education. This proportion is much higher than in other Nordic countries.

80 per cent of Greenlanders between 25 and 65 are active in the workforce, which is slightly below the OECD average and considerably below the levels in other Nordic countries.