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General strike looms as Norwegian wage settlement talks head to mediation

Mediation talks over this year's wage settlement between LO and the NHO began on Friday, with nearly 24,500 workers in Norway ready to strike if an agreement isn't reached by Sunday.

Published: 14 April 2023 10:46 CEST

Pictured is a business meeting.

A general strike could happen in Norway if mediation over a collective bargaining agreement fails to find an agreement. Photo by Dylan Gillis on Unsplash

The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) and the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO) will meet to try and find an agreement on this year’s interim wage settlement agreement.

The parties first met in March but were unable to come to an agreement. This year’s deal only concerns wages as it is an interim settlement.

READ ALSO: What is a Norwegian collective bargaining agreement?

LO has repeatedly said that it intends to push for a real wage increase for its members. Government figures estimate inflation in Norway will be at 4.9 percent for 2023, meaning a minimum rise of five percent would be required to meet the demands of the union group.

On the other hand, NHO has argued that inflation figures don’t consider the projected profitability of businesses, which it argues are under increased pressure this year.

“There are different earning capacities in the companies. Some are doing well, but the majority have a darker view of the future,” Ole Erik Almlid, leader of the NHO, told public broadcaster NRK.

If an agreement isn’t reached by Sunday, 24,500 workers from LO and the Confederation of Vocational Unions (YS) will be taken out on strike on Monday. The NHO and LO can also opt to extend the deadline if they wish.

Several analysts told NRK that they expected wages in Norway to rise by between 5.25 and 5.5 percent this year.

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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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