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WORKING IN NORWAY

Should workers in Norway fear job cuts in the near future?

Companies are expected to cut back on employees amid lower investment and declining earnings, a report from the Norwegian Confederation of Enterprise (NHO) has warned.

Published: 8 March 2023 10:20 CET
Pictured are two workers finalising paperwork.
The NHO has said that one in three firms under its umbrella will consider cutting back on staff in the near future. Pictured are two workers finalising paperwork. Photo by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash

Norway’s job market over the past two years could be described as relatively healthy, thanks in part to record vacancies and demand for workers in several sectors.

“In Norway, (economic) activity grew at an annual rate of over three percent in the fourth quarter, far above normal cruising speed. At the end of February, only one and a half percent of the workforce was still registered as completely unemployed. The number of unfilled positions has increased further and is now the highest in at least twelve years,” the NHO wrote in a report.

However, the country’s employment outlook took a hit recently, with inflation outgrowing wages last year and a new report indicating that companies across Norway could cut back on staff.

The report from the Norwegian Confederation of Enterprise, published on Tuesday, said that firms expect an economic decline, lower levels of investment and poorer earnings.

“High inflation and increased interest rates will weaken households’ purchasing power and result in lower consumption growth this year. High costs and reduced demand reduce companies’ desire to hire and invest,” Øystein Dørum, chief economist at NHO, said in the report.

The NHO is the largest employer organisation in Norway, representing private-sector firms. It lobbies the government over business interests and negotiations with unions over annual collective bargaining agreements.

Some one in three firms has told the employer organisation that they will downsize in the near future. Furthermore, only one in six companies will increase the number of staff on their books.

Growth in the number of available positions and the number of people in work would also slow following several record years.

Towards the end of March, the NHO will discuss private-sector wage rises with the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO).  The NHO expects wages to increase by a decent margin, although a rise in real wages looked marginal, given how inflation estimates for the rest of 2023.

READ MORE: Which industries in Norway have the most vacancies, and what do they pay?

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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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