Fewer Eastern Europeans arriving in Norway

Temporary Labour ContractsConstruction Workers, Illustration. Photo: Pixabay

Several Eastern European countries are experiencing record low unemployment figures and better finances. This has led to more Eastern Europeans moving home from Norway .

 

‘We saw a peak in labour immigration in 2012, but we now see that there are fewer, especially Poles and Lithuanians, who move to Norway,’ said Adrian Haugen Ordemann, of Statistics Norway (SSB), to Aftenposten.

In recent years, the annual net immigration of Lithuanian, Polish and Swedish nationals to Norway dropped by 16,000 people. By 2016, these were the largest groups emigrating from Norway.

After Poland joined the EU in 2004, a stream of young men, aged between 20 and 40, came to Norway. However, the economy in their home countries is now doing well, while the need for employment in the construction industry and industry is high.

According to figures from Eurostat, unemployment in Poland, Lithuania and the Czech Republic has fallen considerably over the past four years.

However, chief analysts in Nordea, Anders Svendsen, believes that the increasing migration of Eastern Europeans will not cause major consequences here.

‘The poles have worked in the professions with the lowest wages in Norway. If there were a large labour shortage here, wages will be adjusted to make those jobs more attractive’.

 

©  NTB Scanpix / Norway Today