Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK
For members

WORKING IN NORWAY

How rogue firms in Norway steal salaries, and what you can do

Some companies in Norway try to take advantage of foreign workers by skimming their wages or withholding benefits. Here's how wage theft works in Norway, how to spot it and what you can do. 

Published: 29 February 2024 11:07 CET
Pictured is a group of colleagues collaborating.
Wage theft can be a problem for some foreign workers in Norway. Pictured is a group of colleagues collaborating. Photo by Campaign Creators on Unsplash

Norway is known worldwide for being a great place to work, with a particular focus on wages and work-life balance. 

However, there is a dark side to working in Norway, and there are plenty of ways in which workers, particularly those from overseas, can be taken advantage of. 

READ MORE: How foreign workers can be exploited in the Norwegian labour market

Despite several laws and countless employee organisations trying to keep things in check, there are still a few rogue firms out there finding ways to flout the rules. 

Wage theft is one-way workers in Norway can be taken advantage of. The concept is quite straightforward: wage theft is when an employer doesn’t fulfil its obligation to pay the employee salary, overtime, holiday pay or other remuneration they are entitled to. 

Typically, wage theft can come in three forms. The first is the most obvious because companies typically withhold wages. The other two tactics include paying the employee less than they are entitled to, and the third is paying the full salary and then demanding part of that wage to be repaid on illegal grounds. 

There are some legal grounds for withholding wages, such as if the work was not carried out. 

Typically, skimming wages and not paying things like overtime and holidays are the most common forms of wage theft. Project-oriented work, where some period of crunch time to meet a deadline is expected, is one area where the failure to pay overtime may occur. 

READ ALSO: What are the rules for overtime in Norway

How to spot wage theft 

For starters, employers cannot offer cash-in-hand work. This has been done to prevent wage theft. All salaries need to be paid via bank transfer to ensure there is a paper trail in the event of wrongdoing. 

Secondly, you must track your wages and ensure you receive a pay slip for every salary payment. You will then need to ensure that your wages line up with the salary you agreed on and the hours you are working. 

Thirdly, familiarise yourself with Norwegian labour laws. It may seem tedious, but it will help you with the harder-to-spot forms of wage theft regarding overtime and holiday pay. 

This is because when you raise issues, a rogue company may provide you with false information as to why you’ve not been paid, why your salary is lower than expected, or why you didn’t receive overtime or holiday pay. 

If you aren’t covered by a union – and potentially even more exposed to potential wage theft – you will need to check if a minimum wage applies to your industry. 

The Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority is a great resource to use. It has an overview (in English) of a number of key working laws covering everything from working hours to holidays and pay. 

What you can do if you think you are the victim of wage theft

The first thing you should do is query the employer. It may be a genuine mistake on their part, and they may remunerate you. 

Although double-check that they are not providing you with false information if they refuse to pay you what you think you are owed. 

Then you should tip off the Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority so it can inspect the situation further. 

When it comes to getting your money back, things may be more complicated. One option recommended by legal professionals is petitioning the employer for bankruptcy. 

After doing this, you can apply to NAV to have your wages and expenses covered. 

Once you’ve petitioned for bankruptcy, you can file a payment claim to recover the money. The letter should be sent and tracked. If the payment claim goes unpaid, then the debt collection process begins. 

This means that the matter can end up in court. 

One issue with this is a lawyer may be required to offer guidance, which can be expensive. 

Secondly, some companies move their assets and then close up shop to try and get around paying the claimant. 

Wage theft is a crime, so you should also contact the police to ensure the person responsible is punished. 

Is enough being done to stop wage theft? 

A wage theft law came into effect in 2022. However, just one employer has been convicted since the law’s introduction, and around 90 percent of cases are dropped. Depending on the severity, wage theft is punishable by up to two or six years in prison.

Criticism of the current law revolves around the victim being responsible for recovering the stolen wages. Many argue for the law to be changed so that the state is the one who collects the stolen salary on the employee’s behalf. 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

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. 

SHOW COMMENTS