Immigrants over-qualified at work

A professor at the University of Bergen says she’s not surprised by a new study showing that 26 percent of workers in Norway with immigrant background are over-qualified for the jobs they have. She suspects discrimination is behind the figures. “There seems to be a pattern that immigrants more often than ethnic Norwegian employees find [...]

IKEA wins prize for employment diversity

Home furnishings retail giant IKEA has won the annual prize awarded by the state to recognize ethnic diversity in the workplace. At its IKEA Furuset store on Oslo’s northeast side, fully 62 percent of the employees have minority background. Among them is Sanjay Lakhanpal, an engineer from India who told newspaper Dagsavisen that he faced [...]

Immigration’s image gets a boost

Norwegians have become more positive towards immigration since July 22, when a right-wing Norwegian extremist unleashed terrorist attacks aimed at stopping it. New research suggests his murderous rampage seems to have had the opposite effect. The research, conducted by state statistics bureau SSB (Statistics Norway), shows major increases in positive response to issues involving immigration. [...]

Politician on leave after death threats

Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a Member of Parliament for the conservative Progress Party, has been placed on leave after receiving death threats and warnings of severe bodily injury. The threats are linked to his political views questioning the merits of immigration. Tybring-Gjedde has been among those accused of inflammatory rhetoric against immigration, not least in a column [...]

Fewer immigrants arrive in Norway

As the economy shows signs of slowing down in Norway, fewer immigrants from eastern Europe are arriving in the country looking for work. More are still coming from southern Europe, but many find it hard to find a job despite Norway’s low unemployment rate. Newspaper Dagsvisen reported on Wednesday how Theo Nikolaidis from Greece has [...]

New census taken over the weekend

State officials undertook Norway’s first official census since 2001 on Saturday. As Norway’s population reaches, and may surpass, the 5-million mark, the census information will have a great impact on the efficiency of how the state can operate over the next decade. Census information will be used to plan construction of schools, hospitals and other [...]

‘More radicals like Breivik in Norway’

An award-winning Norwegian journalist and author who specializes in the right-wing extremist and anti-Jihad movements fears more radicals may resort to terrorist attacks in Norway. He doesn’t think confessed terrorist Anders Behring Breivik is the “lone wolf” he’s made out to be. Øyvind Strømmen recently won Norway’s “Freelancer of the Year” journalist prize for his [...]

Call goes out for Global Talent group

How can Norway make talented foreign workers feel at home? Scores of players in the business world grappled with that question at Norway’s first Global Mobility Forum on Wednesday, and a call went out for a so-called “Global Talent Consortium” to attract talented foreign workers to Norway, and hang on to them. The goal is [...]

Effort grows to revive ‘Nansenpass’

As government officials hail Norway’s famed explorer and humanitarian Fridtjof Nansen this year, refugees in Oslo wish they’d take more to heart Nansen’s efforts to provide stateless persons with rights and credentials. One teenager whose family fled Lebanon planned to confront Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg with a replica of a “Nansenpass,” the special “passports” for [...]

Immigrants and refugees opt to leave

Refugees who’ve been denied asylum in Norway are opting to leave voluntarily, in record numbers, while other foreigners who’ve been granted permanent residence are leaving as well. Many are moving on after having trouble finding  jobs or running into racism. The head of Norway’s immigration directorate UDI (Utlendingsdirektoratet), Ida Børresen, told news bureau NTB that [...]

Government drops refugee return centers

The Norwegian government won’t be building new centers to house rejected refugees after all. Justice ministry officials decided the centers would be too expensive. Pål Lønseth, state secretary in the ministry, said the government would instead put a priority on other measures aimed at expediting the return of those whose applications for asylum have been [...]

Immigrants come looking for work

Immigrants from the European Union (EU), the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand made up fully two-thirds of the roughly 50,000 persons who arrived in Norway from outside the Nordic area last year. Most were hoping to find a job. With Norway’s economy remaining strong at a time when other countries are suffering serious debt [...]

Mayoral candidate sets off storm

Carl I Hagen, the former high-profile head of Norway’s most conservative political party, officially retired two years ago but quickly admitted that he missed politics and the public spotlight. He’s been making a comeback as a candidate for mayor of Oslo for Fremskrittspartiet, Frp (the Progress Party), and he just as quickly set off a [...]

Calls to tackle racism after attacks

Issues of racism and discrimination continue to be hotly debated in Norway in the aftermath to the Oslo bombings and Utøya shootings that the confessed perpetrator, Anders Behring Breivik, claims were an attack on the country’s multiculturalism. The leader of the Conservative Party, Erna Solberg, has commented on the need to tackle racism, particularly Islamophobia. [...]

‘Fear of foreigners’ breeds extremists

Anders Behring Breivik is by no means Norway’s first home-grown right-wing extremist. Concerns are rising that the country, with its relatively small population, has produced what some experts call a disproportionate amount of internationally known extremists, and some link it to a history of fremmedfrykt (fear of foreigners). While Norwegian society generally has grown more [...]

« Previous Page — Next Page »