Young Swedes Flock to Newly Rich Norway for Work

[antarctica_moon]

Looks like Norway's the place to be. Forget about looking for work in Finland.

The article says that young Swedes are making $46/hour at menial jobs.

$46/hour is 46x40x52 is a very impressive $95,680 a year.

=======================================
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/world ... ref=slogin


December 30, 2007
Young Swedes Flock to Newly Rich Norway for Work
By IVAR EKMAN
OSLO — Long a poor cousin in Scandinavia, Norway has surpassed Sweden to become one of the richest countries in the world — to the point where it has become a magnet for young Swedes ready to work hard to make quick money, and lots of it.

“When I was young, Swedes had whiter teeth, clearer skin, Abba and Bjorn Borg. We had lots of fish, and not much more,” said Thomas Hylland Eriksen, a professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo.

“Today, Swedes have been cut down to size,” he said. “And I would say that many Norwegians enjoy the fact that so many Swedes are here doing menial jobs.”

The number of Swedes living and working in Norway almost doubled between 1990 and 2007 and is now about 35,000. Studies have shown that the number of Swedes commuting to work in Norway has also grown quickly.

And although the countries are culturally compatible enough that the influx has caused little upheaval, it is changing Oslo’s character. Poor neighborhoods like Storgata and Brugata, long a draw for immigrant workers from cultures farther away, are now being filled by Swedes seeking inexpensive lodging, leading to jokes about “Swedish ghettos.”

In the years after World War II — in which Norway had been occupied by Nazi Germany and Sweden had stayed neutral, leaving its industrial base intact — Sweden’s economy grew at a breakneck pace. Workers came from all over Europe, and not least from Norway, to fill the factories, shipyards and construction sites of the boom years.

But in the 1980s, Sweden’s economy started to stumble, and the vast welfare state that was built up in the postwar years began to show cracks.

At the same time, the oil that Norway found in the North Sea in the 1970s began to ignite the country’s economic growth. By the early 1990s, just as Sweden was entering a deep recession, Norway’s boom years started in earnest.

The Norwegian gross domestic product per capita, which was 80 percent of Sweden’s for much of the postwar period, soared past Sweden’s in 1991. In 2006, the average G.D.P. adjusted to reflect purchasing power for a Norwegian stood at a whopping $53,000, compared with a humbler $34,000 for a Swede, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based group of 30 nations. In 2006, Norway was the third largest exporter of oil in the world, after Saudi Arabia and Russia.

That economic success has led to the Swedish influx, which in turn is continuing to improve Norway’s economy, analysts say.

“The availability of cheap labor contributes to the growth in the Norwegian economy,” said Knut Anton Mork, chief economist at Handelsbanken, the Stockholm-based bank. “It is not as extreme as in some of the Middle Eastern emirates — and I don’t think Swedes want to be viewed in the same light — but economically the same elements are in place.”

The Oslo headquarters of this labor is the Swedish Association, a private agency, in Storgata, a heavily immigrant neighborhood.

It rents out 300 beds in apartments near its office and offers counseling on how to navigate Norwegian society and, most important, how to find work.

“Right now, it’s pretty slow,” Josefine Karlsson, who works for the association, said of the waiting list of about 300. In the busiest times, at the end of the summer and in January, the list can grow to 1,000, she said.

Most Swedes who come are 18 through 25, and are prepared to work hard. Mikael Svensson, a Swede who recruits countrymen for the staffing company Adecco, said Swedes are very popular among Norwegian employers.

Many, like Jenny Eriksson, 22, pack food in warehouses. Others, like Sofia Falk, 21, and Pernilla Bergstrom, 19, work in the restaurant industry. Both admit that they were drawn here by the money — 120 to 250 kronor, or $22 to $46, per hour for the kind of jobs most Swedes do, close to double the pay in Sweden.

While some end up spending most of their earnings, others live very frugally. “We don’t shop, we don’t go out,” said Ms. Bergstrom, who works at a McDonald’s in Storgata. She said she would use the money she saved to travel in Asia, and to pay for studies in Sweden.

Most of the Swedes interviewed said they did not feel discriminated against by the Norwegians.

But Ms. Karlsson at the Swedish Association said she was miffed by an advertisement for an apartment that said it would be good for “Swedes or Poles.”

“Nothing bad about Poles, but that’s not really how we see ourselves,” she said, referring to the fact that hundreds of thousands of Poles have sought higher paying jobs in Western Europe since the expansion of the European Union in 2004. As for the Norwegians, even if they admit to a certain sense of glee from having their former “bigger brother” packing their food and making their coffee, they try to be magnanimous about it.

“One can feel some joy about Norway doing better than Sweden,” said Lars Ostby, a researcher at Statistics Norway, a federal agency. “But we’ve won on lottery, and you don’t win on lottery because you deserve it.”

[Hank W.]

Yep, its been "good money" for a long time, but you need to look at the living expenses as well.

[sinikala]

Looks like Norway's the place to be. Forget about looking for work in Finland.

Yep, its been "good money" for a long time, but you need to look at the living expenses as well.

I lived in Norway when I was a kid, even as far back as the late 70's it was one of the most expensive places in the world. To put it into perspective check out the cost of a Peppe's pizza meal deal ...

http://www.peppes.no/bestill/TilStart.do

1 large pizza, 1 DVD rental, 1.5litres of Pepsi = NOK 359 = EUR 45.15 = USD 66.45

[antarctica_moon]

Yes, Norway is very expensive. Oslo's the 10th most expensive city in the world:

http://www.citymayors.com/features/cost_survey.html

1 Moscow Russia
2 London United Kingdom
3 Seoul South Korea
4 Tokyo Japan
5 Hong Kong China
6 Copenhagen Denmark
7 Geneva Switzerland
8 Osaka Japan
9 Zurich Switzerland
10 Oslo

Helsinki is 22, Stockholm is 23. NYC is 15th.

[FFCBOY]

1 Moscow Russia
2 London United Kingdom
3 Seoul South Korea
4 Tokyo Japan
5 Hong Kong China
6 Copenhagen Denmark
7 Geneva Switzerland
8 Osaka Japan
9 Zurich Switzerland
10 Oslo

Helsinki is 22, Stockholm is 23. NYC is 15th.

i would love to know what this list is based on there is no way london is second most expense city to live in the world!!!

[flyingyellowpig]

Look @ this one too.
http://www.uio.no/iss/student_life/painfo/prices.html

Public transportation:
Unfortunately, there is no student discount for ISS students on transportation.

• Ticket for 1 trip (valid for 1 hour on all means of public transportation within the city limits)
NOK
• if bought in advance 20
• if bought from the driver 30
• Day pass (valid 24 hours from devaluation time, for an unlimited number of trips on all means of public transportation within the city limits) 60
• Ticket for 8 trips (“Flexi-kort”, each clip is valid for 1 hour on all means of public transportation within the city limits) 160
• 7 Day pass (valid for 7 consecutive days from devaluation date, for an unlimited number of trips on all means of public transportation within the city limits) 210
• Monthly pass (valid for one month from devaluation date, for an unlimited number of trips on all means of public transportation within the city limits; we strongly recommend that you purchase such a pass!) 720
Movie ticket 85-90
Dinner in cafeteria per person 90 to 250
Beer (1/2 liter in a pub) 35-70
Apples (1 kg.) 15-25

[sinikala]

1 Moscow Russia
2 London United Kingdom
3 Seoul South Korea
4 Tokyo Japan
5 Hong Kong China
6 Copenhagen Denmark
7 Geneva Switzerland
8 Osaka Japan
9 Zurich Switzerland
10 Oslo

Helsinki is 22, Stockholm is 23. NYC is 15th.

i would love to know what this list is based on there is no way London is second most expensive city to live in the world!!!

Such "cost of living" lists are largely meaningless to tourists, for London at least they factor in all the expensive flats in Knightsbridge / Chelsea which sell for >>£10k per square metre, not all cities have such silly money areas.

The cost of a day spent in Copenhagen is nowhere near the cost of a day in Oslo.

[otyikondo]

1 Moscow Russia
2 London United Kingdom
3 Seoul South Korea
4 Tokyo Japan
5 Hong Kong China
6 Copenhagen Denmark
7 Geneva Switzerland
8 Osaka Japan
9 Zurich Switzerland
10 Oslo

Helsinki is 22, Stockholm is 23. NYC is 15th.

i would love to know what this list is based on there is no way London is second most expensive city to live in the world!!!

Such "cost of living" lists are largely meaningless to tourists, for London at least they factor in all the expensive flats in Knightsbridge / Chelsea which sell for >>£10k per square metre, not all cities have such silly money areas.

The cost of a day spent in Copenhagen is nowhere near the cost of a day in Oslo.

You may be right, sinikala (I haven't been arsed to check the methodology on this list), but in many such surveys the thrust is for the executive traveller (hotels, restaurants, taxis, car rentals, etc.) rather than the RESIDENT, and in that case I suspect London WOULD figure very high on anyone's list, as the price of hotel accommodation there is quite obscene.


Edited to add:

Well, I decided to be arsed after all, and this is what came up:

Mercer's survey covers 143 cities across six continents and measures the comparative cost of over 200 items in each location, including housing, transport, food, clothing, household goods and entertainment. It is the world's most comprehensive cost-of-living survey and is used to help multinational companies and governments determine compensation allowances for their expatriate employees.

Which does tend to back up Sinikala's reference to silly prices for apartment rentals. But even so, the cost of living for a business type parachuted into City X from abroad to do a job is always going to be higher than than for a barefoot native who knows his or her way around the place.

[shrecher]

Yes, Norway is very expensive. Oslo's the 10th most expensive city in the world:

http://www.citymayors.com/features/cost_survey.html

1 Moscow Russia

This rate for expats and tourists. For Moscow the leader position mostly come from shortage of hotels. Yes, if you stay for a week then you pay €400 per night. However, for locals the life if much cheaper.

So, such "cost survey" has very little value if you are going to stay for long at the country.

[gezasal]

Hank,please help me out with some information!
Is it possible for me,like citizen of Romania,to work in Norway ?

[Mattlill2000]

I have a friend who's a carpenter working in Oslo. He returned home for x-mas and while the money is better, it just covers the higher price for everything. For a bachelor its a working vacation but nothing like a dramatic increase in income. Besides lets look at the basics, beer is way more expensive. He says he'll be back in Kerava for good this summer.