Employment among immigrants, register-based, 2003, 4th quarter

The decline in the employment rate among first generation immigrants was stronger for men than women, 2.8 and 1.3 percentage points respectively.

New EU countries

Immigrants from the new EU countries were more likely to be employed than immigrants from the rest of Eastern Europe, 61.0 and 53.9 per cent respectively. The employment rate for the new EU countries is close to the employment rate of immigrants from Western Europe (except the Nordic countries) of 66.8 per cent. Immigrants from the Nordic countries had the highest total employment rate with 71.5 per cent, while African immigrants had the lowest with 40.3 per cent. This group also had the strongest decrease in employment with 3.5 percentage points. Among the non-western immigrants, immigrants from South and Central America had the highest employment rate with 56.9 per cent while immigrants from Asia had the lowest with 56.9 per cent.

If we look at individual nationalities, some non-western nationalities have a relatively high level of employment. For instance, immigrants from Chile, the Philippines, Ghana, India and Croatia had an employment rate slightly above 60 per cent, which places them close to immigrants from many western countries. Immigrants from Afghanistan and Somalia had the lowest rates with 24 and 25 per cent respectively. This low level must be connected to the relative high shares of refugees with short time of residence in Norway compared with other non-western nationalities.

Non-western immigrants work in hotels and restaurants

Non-western immigrants had a much higher share of employment in cleaning, hotels and restaurants compared with the working population as a whole. On the national level we find 3.4 per cent of all employed persons within hotels and restaurant, while non-western immigrants have 12.6 per cent within this industry. We find a similar pattern within industrial cleaning, 6.6 per cent among employed non-westerns immigrant compared with 0.8 per cent among employed persons in total.

Many non-westerners within elementary occupations

Since 2003, the register-based employment statistics also include distribution by occupation. However, employees in health enterprises and municipal and county administration are not yet included in the tables on distribution by occupation. The distribution based on nine main groups of occupation reveal that non-western employees had a high share of employment in the group of elementary occupations. 26.4 per cent of the non-western employees work in this group compared with 6.7 per cent in the entire working population (with information on occupation). The western employees are more likely to work in professional occupations. 17.3 per cent of this group had such occupations compared with 10.0 per cent in the working population as a whole. The non-western workers had a percentage of 6.0. When the occupation groups managers, professionals and technicians and associate professionals are aggregated, the western workers had a total share of 46.1 per cent embracing these groups while the non-westerners had 15.7 per cent. Employees in total had a share of 36.9 per cent.

Private sector has highest share of immigrants

Distribution by economic sector shows that the private sector has the largest share of non-western employees with 4.3 per cent. In the state sector there was a similar proportion of 3.0 per cent while the figure was 3.8 per cent in the municipal and county sector. This distribution must be related to the distributions based on industries and occupations, while the state sector has a larger proportion of academic occupations than the private sector. Looking at immigrant workers in total, the differences among the economic sectors are smaller; 6.9 per cent (private sector), 6.1 per cent (state sector) and 5.8 per cent (municipal and county sector).

The state sector had, however, the strongest growth in the share of immigrant workers with 0.26 percentage points. In the private sector there was a stagnation, while the municipal and county sector had a growth of 0.22 percentage points.

Higher employment among people born in Norway to foreign-born immigrants

Statistics Norway also publishes employment figures for people born in Norway to foreign-born parents. This group had a total employment rate of 57.9 per cent, and this is 2.3 percentage points above the level of the parent generation. In absolute numbers, the Norwegian born counted 7 100 persons, and more than half of them were between 16 and 25 years old.

The Nordic immigrants (based on the mother's country of birth) had the highest employment rate, 74.0 per cent , while both the Eastern- and Western European groups had an employment rate just below 70 per cent. Persons born in Norway by mothers from Africa had an employment rate of 52.1 per cent, which is 12 percentage points higher than their parent generation. The Norwegian born had in total a decrease in the employment rate of 3.2 percentage points, which is somewhat larger than the decline among the first generation of 2.1 percentage points.

Tables:

• Table 1 Employed by region of birth, sex and generation. Per cent of persons aged 16-74 years and in absolute figures. Q4 2002 and Q4 2003
• Table 2 Employed by region of birth, sex and generation. Per cent of persons aged 16-74 years and in absolute figures. Q4 2003
• Table 3 Employed by sex, labour market status, region of birth and generation. Per cent of persons aged 16-74 years in each group and in absolute figures. Q4 2003
• Table 4 Employed first generation immigrants, by region of birth and years of residence. Per cent of persons aged 16-74 years and in absolute figures. Q4 2002 and Q4 2003
• Table 5 Employed first generation immigrants, by region of birth, years of residence and age. Per cent of persons aged 16-74 years in each group and in absolute figures. Q4 2003
• Table 6 Employed immigrants aged 16-74 years by region of birth and selected industries. Q4 2003. Per cent
• Table 7 Self employed immigrants aged 16-74 years by region of birth and selected industries. Q4 2003. Per cent
• Table 8 Self-employed immigrants 16-74 years by region of birth and selected industries. Per cent and absolute numbers. Q4 2003.
• Table 9 Employed first generation immigrants, by selected countries of birth. Absolute figures and in per cent of persons in total 16-74 years. Q4 2002 and 2003
• Table 10 Employees by economic sector and immigrant-background. Q4 2002 and 2003
• Table 11 Employees, by occupational groups and region of birth. Q4 2003