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WORKING IN NORWAY

The best websites to look for jobs in Norway 

If you're looking for your next career challenge in Norway or are indeed new to the country and looking to explore the job market, these are some of the best websites to look for jobs. 

Published: 16 March 2023 16:39 CET
Pictured is somebody searching for jobs.
Here are the best websites to look for work in Norway. Pictured is somebody searching for jobs. Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

One of the most important aspects of life in Norway is your job and career. Some moving to Norway will be required to have a job offer on the table before they can apply for residence. 

Those with different residency situations will be able to have a bit more flexibility and won’t need a contract offer to be granted a permit to live and work in Norway. 

Alternatively, you may have been in your job for a few years and are now wondering where the best places are to help you search for your next career step. Below we’ve included Norway’s best places to look for a job and some options that will help you broaden your search if you are stuck looking at the same websites. 

The Local Jobs 

The Local actually has its own jobs site. You can use it to filter for jobs by career type and by which of Norway’s major cities you are searching for employment in. Whether you think your future lies in software, sales or social media. Most of the job descriptions are also offered in English. 

Arbeidsplassen 

Norway’s Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV) has its own job portal, Arbeidsplassen, that you probably will have heard of. Like some of the obvious picks for this list, it’s obvious because it’s one of the best places to search and home to more opportunities than other sites. 

You will probably have to use the site via google translate, but that doesn’t mean that English-speaking opportunities and job descriptions offered in English aren’t plentiful. 

Additionally, the tools to filter jobs by area, public or private sector, full or part-time employment and profession are robust, allowing you to hone down your search for the opportunities best suited to you. 

There isn’t a specific way to filter for only English-speaking jobs, but if you enter terms like “English”, “English-speaking”, and “speak English”, you will tend to find roles aimed at English speakers. 

These jobs are mainly aimed at tradespeople, construction workers, international school teachers and tourism and hospitality workers. 

Another perk to the Arbeidsplassen site is that you can use the speedy application feature once you create a job profile. 

Finn.no 

Norway’s largest ad listing site is also home to many vacancies. Again, you will likely be required to use a translation tool. However, this site has a number of key advantages over other sites offered in Norwegian though. 

For starters, you can filter by jobs where the primary working language is English. This is beneficial for those who have yet to quite get to grips with the language. Although, the English working language section also includes plenty of opportunities that require Norwegian language skills. 

You can also filter by seniority, so you can search strictly for management, leadership and executive roles if you want to use your years of industry experience effectively. 

A final perk for those who like flexibility is the fact that you can also search for openings that allow you to work from home or a mix of working from the office and from home. 

Webcruiter 

You will need strong Norwegian language skills for the majority of jobs listed here as there are in the Norwegian public sector. Some of the jobs are also in professions which require you to have your previous experience verified too. 

The downside to this is that it means quite a few of the jobs listed are out of the reach of the typical foreign resident. 

LinkedIn 

Depending on your industry, you may already be active on LinkedIn. LinkedIn itself is incredibly popular in Norway among private-sector workers. 

Therefore, having an active profile can aid you in your job hunt. LinkedIn is also home to plenty of job listings in Norway. 

You can also search companies you’d be interested in working at and see whether they have any openings available. 

Temp agencies and recruitment agencies

For those whose residence isn’t reliant on holding a position isn’t dependent on possessing essential qualifications relevant to the job you will be taking, then a temp agency can help you hit the ground running and start earning cash quickly. 

There are a number of firms in Norway that either recruit on behalf of employers or help find you an opening which matches your skills. Some of these firms include Manpower, Adecco and Kelly Services Norway. These firms are also valuable to those who need a specific job to meet residence requirements. 

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WORKING IN NORWAY

Why overqualified foreigners in Norway struggle to find work

Norway is one of the worst countries in Europe when it comes to overqualified foreign labour being stuck in jobs that don’t make the best use of their skills, a new analysis has found. 

Published: 23 April 2024 11:38 CEST
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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