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Salary increase averts hotel staff strikes in Norway

There will not be any strikes from hotel staff in Norway, after an agreement was reached on Sunday to increase salaries and improve conditions for employees in hotels, restaurants and catering.

Published: 24 April 2022 17:37 CEST

A bar worker

Illustration photo of a bar worker. Photo: Tangerine Chan, Unsplash

After hours of negotiation, an agreement was made between the United Federation of Trade Unions (Fellesforbundet) and the Norwegian Hospitality Association (NHO Reiseliv) on salaries and conditions for employees in hotels, restaurants and catering.

A total of 1,250 hotel, restaurant and catering employees would have gone on strike from Sunday if the parties had not reached an agreement.

The minimum wage in the industry was 175.47 kr per hour if you are over 20 years old, according to the Norwegian Labor Inspection Authority. (arbeidstilsynet). This has now increased to an extra 4.47 kr to 9.51 kr per hour, depending on how long you have worked in the industry and whether you work shifts.

For employees who have from 4 years experience and work 35.5 hours a week, this means a wage supplement of 9.51kr per hour, Fellesforbundet writes.

“Real wage growth for our members was absolutely crucial. Food, electricity and interest are becoming more expensive, and wages must keep pace,” chief negotiator Clas Delp said.

Changes have also been agreed on gender equality, workwear, staff training, and working conditions.

“Both hotels and restaurants must be serious and good workplaces, where people stay. We are now raising the level in the industry for everyone, as well as securing greater incentives for those who have worked longer”, Delp said.

“People should be rewarded for staying in the job. It is the experienced in the industry who ensure competence and training for the many thousands recruited in the years to come,” Delp added.

Magne Kristensen, chief negotiator and director of working life policy at NHO Reiseliv, called it a “very demanding mediation”.

“It was an expensive settlement. Employers have gone to great lengths to find a solution and avoid strikes. We are nevertheless satisfied with avoiding conflict, as many tourism companies are still in a difficult financial situation after two years of pandemic”, he said.

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Why overqualified foreigners in Norway struggle to find work

Norway is one of many European countries struggling with “brain waste”, which is where immigrants struggle to find suitable full-time work or are overqualified for their roles due to their education not being recognised.

The findings are part of an investigation by Lighthouse Reports, the Financial Times, El País and Unbias The News that found that most European countries fail to provide good job opportunities to educated foreigners – potentially at the cost of their labour forces and economies.

“While the results differ slightly between labour market outcomes, a consistent pattern emerges: immigrants lag behind natives everywhere, but brain waste is worst in Southern Europe, Norway, and Sweden,” the report read.

Some of the metrics used to measure brain waste were the proportion of foreign residents who were overqualified for their role, underemployed (meaning they weren’t working as much as they could), or unemployed.

In Norway, 27.6 percent of university-educated Norwegians were overqualified for their roles, according to the report. Meanwhile, just over half of the university-educated immigrant population were overqualified for their job.

This figure made Norway one of the countries with the largest raw difference in the percentage of the native population being overqualified compared to the immigrant population.

Furthermore, the number of immigrants who were underemployed, 3.9 percent, was more than double the rate of Norwegians in the same position.

The investigation used figures from Eurostat between 2017 and 2022.

Norway’s Directorate of Integration and Diversity has recently investigated the obstacles facing the country’s foreign population in the workplace.

Its report found that immigrants faced barriers both when trying to progress their careers or simply trying to get their foot in the door.

Immigrants working in Norway were also more likely to leave working life earlier or lose their jobs.

READ ALSO: The biggest barriers foreigners in Norway face at work

Factors such as working in temp positions, physically taxing occupations, and industries exposed to economic turbulence contributed to this.

However, a lack of Norwegian proficiency, a lack of relevant skills and poor health also played a part.

Discrimination prevented immigrants from entering the workplace and affected those who were employed.

“More and more people in the population have contact with immigrants in working life, and most experience that contact as mainly positive. At the same time, one in four immigrants has experienced discrimination in the workplace, and this discrimination can occur in different forms and in different working situations,” the report read.

The directorate also said that most companies didn’t have concrete measures to try and promote diversity.

One factor holding back immigrants in Norway was their Norwegian language skills, the report said.

While Norwegian skills were moving in the right direction, less than half of foreigners in the country had advanced Norwegian language skills (level B2 according to the European framework) after completing language training.

Meanwhile, Lighthouse Reports’ investigation found that brain waste in Norway varied from profession to profession. For example, Norway was one of a number of countries where college-educated immigrants were more likely to be doctors.

Immigrants with a university education in IT-related subjects were also far less likely to be overqualified. There, the difference between migrants being overqualified compared to natives was just 2 percent.

However, physical and engineering science technicians, engineering professionals (excluding electrotechnology), and those who have studied education at a university level were the immigrant groups in Norway most likely to be overqualified.

One thing to note is that immigrants who obtained their qualifications in Norway were far less likely to be overqualified than those who got their degrees outside of Norway, even if they still fared worse than natives overall.

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