Even though Norway’s defense build-up will create thousands of new jobs in Northern Norway and other areas of the country, military employees won’t be ordered to move to their new job sites. They’ll still be allowed to commute on a weekly basis back and forth from their homes elsewhere.
“We can’t force people to move,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre told newspaper Klassekampen before announcing creation of a new NATO air command center outside Bodø on Tuesday. He asked the local communities where new military operations will be based, though, to make themselves more attractive, for example by offering jobs to military employees’ partners.
At least 4,600 more jobs will result from the defense build-up, along with more recruits for basic training. More NATO operations are expected as well, bringing with them more people. Statistics from the defense research institute FFI suggest that more than 25 percent of military employees in Northern Norway currently commute from homes in Southern- and Eastern Norway. Army employees commute the most.
“We’re trying to get people to cut all the commuting,” Bardu Mayor Toralf Heimdal told Klassekampen. He wants military staff and their families to move to his area, because that would bring in more tax revenue and state aid, and boost the economy.
NewsinEnglish.no staff
