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"Every Polish worker's dream is a steady job in Norway"

The sizeable immigration from former Eastern European countries to the Nordic countries - and to Norway in particular - calls for integration measures which also include labour migrants, say Norwegian researchers.
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More than 330,000 citizens from the newest EU member states have immigrated to the Nordic countries between 2004 and 2011. The number of labour migrants rises to around 600,000 if you include those who have come to perform temporary work. Most work in the construction and manufacturing industries, in agriculture or in other unskilled trades. The UK is the most attractive country followed by the Nordic countries, and in particular Norway. Most labour migrants come from Poland and Lithuania. Estonians make up the largest group in Finland. 

Norway has as many labour migrants form former Eastern Europe as all of the other Nordic countries put together. Iceland saw relatively few labour migrants (per capita) before the 2008 economic crisis. 

An increasing number of immigrants stay, despite the fact that many of them are poorly integrated into the Nordic labour markets. Wages, work conditions, employment protection, work environments and the opportunity for skills development are usually all worse for immigrants compared to native workers.

Minister of Social Inclusion Solveig Horne answers

People in the weakest positions, with low pay and weak positions in the labour market, find it hardest to integrate and lead a normal life. But there is little focus on this and there is for instance no official ambition among employers or politicians to create a system which helps labour migrants access language training, says Jon Horgen Friberg at FAFO. 

Good language skills are crucial for integration. We want to strengthen immigrants' Norwegian skills. We want to offer good access to Norwegian classes also for labour migrants who do not qualify for free training, and money has been set aside for online Norwegian training. The online LearnNow program is developed by NTNU [the Norwegian University of Science and Technology], it's freely available for all and is now aimed especially at immigrants in working life. This offer can be used in remote learning and as supporting material in ordinary classroom based Norwegian training. But I also want to point out that employers carry a responsibility here," says government minister Horne.

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