Norway: Unemployment by immigrants going down

New figures show unemployment among immigrants sinking, but the gap between them and ethnic Norwegians remains.

Registered unemployment among immigrants dropped from 8.1 percent to 6 percent last year according to new figures from Statistics Norway (SSB).

But unemployment has also dropped markedly among ethnic Norwegians, from 2.6 percent to 1.8 percent.

According to the SSB, the difference between immigrants and Norwegians on the employment market has remained very stable, even in periods of high unemployment, with immigrants generally having three times a higher rate.

The SSB defines immigrants as persons born abroad of foreign parents. This group is divided into five categories, Western immigrants, Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and South and Central America.

The four non-Western groups had a decline of about three percent points in unemployment. Africans have a 12.8 percent unemployment rate, Asians 8.2 percent, Eastern Europeans 6.9 percent and 6.1 percent for Latin Americans. Immigrants with a Western background had unemployment levels just above Norwegians, 2.2 percent. New Eastern European EU nations had a rate around 3 percent.

The SSB said that the figures also represent the composition of the sub-groups, with the majority of the non-Western immigrants being refugees and the Western representatives and new EU nations were largely an imported work force.

Source: Aftenposten (English)