2 English summary. NOU 2022: 18 Between mobility and migration: The integration of labour migrants in Norway

On 13 August 2021, the Norwegian government appointed a Commission to assess the situation of labour migrants and their families in Norway. In particular, the commission was tasked with examining the situation for those labour migrants registered as resident in the National Population Register originating from both the EEA and third countries and who arrived in Norway after 2004. Based on a broad mapping of integration indicators, the commission was asked to consider and recommend changes to Norwegian integration policy in order to better integrate labour migrants into working life and society. The report was submitted to the government on 13 December 2022.

2004 marks a turning point in Norwegian immigration history. This year, 10 new countries joined the EU – and thereby the EEA, of which Norway is part – including eight countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Four out of every ten immigrants who have arrived in Norway since then have given work as their reason for immigrating. This body of labour migrants amounts to almost 300,000 individuals, of which 65 per cent have arrived from EU member states in Central and Eastern Europe, with Poland and Lithuania as the two largest origin countries. 21 per cent have come from other EU countries, while 14 per cent have come from third countries outside the EU and EEA. In addition, many labour migrants come to Norway for short-term stays.

Labour migrants in Norway constitute a highly complex group. They are both unskilled and skilled workers, as well as highly qualified specialists, and they work in many different occupations. Resident EEA labour migrants are concentrated in building and construction as well as industry and business services, although a certain proportion also work in professions that require higher education. On average, resident third-country national labour migrants have higher levels of education and often work in the fields of science, engineering, ICT and research. Short-term immigrant workers from both the EEA and third countries work primarily in industries that experience significant seasonal variation, such as the agricultural, fishing and tourism industries. Short-term immigrant workers from the EEA are also often found working in building and construction.

In its mapping of labour migrants’ integration into Norway, the Commission has adopted a broad approach to the concept of integration. The degree of economic integration is assessed on the basis of analyses of labour migrants’ employment, unemployment, wage developments, working conditions, trade union membership and use of welfare services and benefits. Furthermore, labour migrants’ socio-cultural, civil, political and receptional integration are assessed through an analysis of the group’s Norwegian language skills, participation in politics and civil society, as well as their perceived sense of belonging and experiences of discrimination in various parts of society.

The Commission’s analysis reveals considerable variation between different groups of labour migrants. These inter-group variations are due to key factors such as duration of residence, level of education, cultural and geographical proximity to Norway and, most significantly, which part of the labour market the labour migrants work. Nevertheless, the report shows that a large fraction of labour migrants in Norway – especially those originating from Central and Eastern European EU member states – experience considerable integration challenges in Norway. This group is characterised by poor Norwegian language skills, low levels of participation in civil society and politics and a perceived lesser sense of belonging. In addition, a large proportion of labour migrants is concentrated in parts of the labour market that typically have lower rates of trade union membership, more transient forms of employment and poorer wage and working conditions.

Based on this main conclusion, the commission’s overall assessment is that there is a need to strengthen policies in order to improve the integration of labour migrants in Norway. However, the Commission holds that any specific policy-based approach must be adapted to the characteristics of labour migration as a phenomenon. Free movement within the EEA is often referred to as mobility rather than migration. Implicit in this terminological distinction is an assumption that movement across national borders within the EEA is more temporary and does not entail permanent settlement in the same manner as other forms of migration. While migration within the EEA indeed is quite mobile, of those labour migrants who arrived in Norway during the 2004–2020 period, more than two thirds remain resident in the country. Of those individuals who arrived from Central and Eastern Europe in the initial years after the 2004 EU enlargement, more than 60 per cent still reside in Norway. This is a higher percentage than among labour migrants from third countries and EU countries in Western Europe who arrived during the same period. Children of immigrants from Poland and Lithuania are also among the fastest growing groups of Norwegian-born persons with foreign parents in the country, which indicates that, for many, settlement in Norway has become permanent.

In the eyes of the Commission, modern labour migration can best be characterised as a phenomenon between migration and mobility. The commission argues that labour migration to Norway should be understood, first, as a differentiated phenomenon. Different categories of labour migrants – whether from the EEA or third countries, and with varied educational and work experience backgrounds – have different prerequisites for integration and different plans for future settlement. Second, labour migration must be understood as a temporal phenomenon, as many go from having a short-term perspective and plans for a quick return to taking up permanent residence in Norway, a process that accelerates when labour migrants’ families join them in Norway or they start their own family in the country. The Commission believes this conceptualisation of labour migration has implications for which policy approach to integration is most appropriate.

In its discussion of possible policy approaches to the integration of labour migrants, the Commission considers three alternative models. The first model is a continuation of the current approach to labour migration and is closest to the understanding of labour migration as mobility. In this model, the divide between labour migrants and refugees/family migrants is maintained in that the latter remains the main target group of integration policy measures. The model builds upon the rationale for Norway’s present integration policy, which is that labour migrants come to the country voluntarily and in response to labour market demand, and consequently have no need for or legitimate claim to specific integration rights.

The second model breaks with the current regime and entails a new, holistic integration policy. This model builds on a view of movement across borders as migration. Its point of departure is that in reality many labour migrants require training in Norwegian language and civics, but that they rarely receive such training through their workplace or through self-funded education. Labour migrants registered as resident, whether from the EEA or third countries, would in this model thus be granted the right to free, work-related training in Norwegian language and civics under the Norwegian Integration Act, as is already the case for refugees and family migrants.

The third model – which is the model recommended by the Commission – builds upon a view of labour migration as a concept that straddles both migration and mobility. In this differentiated integration model, the key distinction between labour migrants and refugees/family migrants is continued in terms of access to most integration policy rights. The model’s basis is that measures designed to counteract social dumping and work-related crime, as well as to increase the group’s trade union membership rights, are the most important tools for integrating labour migrants both professionally and in society as a whole. At the same time, the model reflects the fact that the majority of labour migrants have in fact come to stay and that many have poor Norwegian language skills, possess insufficient knowledge about Norwegian working conditions and rarely engage with civil society or politics. These are challenges which the Commission believes cannot be resolved without targeted integration policies, and which in the long term will have an adverse impact on labour migrants and their families, the local communities in which they reside, as well as Norwegian society as a whole.

The commission believes that strengthening the provision of Norwegian language education in conjunction with targeted measures to provide enhanced information upon arrival, as well as increasing trade union engagement and participation in civil society, will all contribute positively both to the integration of labour migrants in Norwegian working life and society and to the maintenance of the Norwegian working life and welfare model. Considering that the majority of labour migrants who have come to Norway since 2004 have taken up permanent residence and experience considerable integration challenges in the country, it is the Commission’s assessment that this is a necessary policy adjustment to better integrate labour migrants into Norway.