Employment among immigrants, register-based, 2004, 4th quarter

Persons born abroad by foreign- born parents are regarded as immigrants. He or she must also be registered as resident in Norway for at least six months. Figures concerning employed persons on short term stay (not registered resident) were published last week as a part of the total employment statistics .

Male immigrants had an employment rate at 61.1 per cent while the female immigrants had 52.2 per cent employed. In the population as a whole the rates were 72.5 and 66.0 per cent respectively.

New EU countries

Immigrants from the new EU countries were more likely to be employed than immigrants from rest of Eastern-Europe, 64.5 versus 55.6 per cent. The employment rate for immigrants from the new EU countries is close to level among immigrants from Western-Europe (except the Nordic countries) with 67.5 per cent. Immigrants from the Nordic countries had the highest employment rate of 71.5 per cent, while African immigrants had the lowest of 41.2 per cent. Among the non-western immigrants, immigrants from South- and Central America had the highest employment rate with 58.4 per cent while immigrants from Asia had a rate of 48.6 per cent.

High employment rates among immigrants from Chile and The Philippines

If we look at single nationalities some non-western nationalities had a relative high level of employment. For instance, immigrants from Chile, The Philippines, Ghana, India and Croatia had an employment rate above 60 per cent, which places them close to immigrants from many western countries. Immigrants from Afghanistan and Somalia had the lowest rates with 27, and 29 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.

While immigrants from Pakistan and Turkey had low rates

We find, some unexpected, a relative low employment rate among immigrant groups with a long time of residence in Norway, as for instance immigrants from Pakistan and Turkey who both had a rate at 44 per cent. These figures are in both cases a result of a very low level among the females. Among women from Pakistan the employment rate was 28 per cent versus 59 per cent among the men, i.e. an employment rate twice as high as the women's. Also among immigrants from Turkey there was a considerable gender difference, 35 per cent among women versus 57 among the men.

Non-western immigrants had a high share of employees in hotels and restaurants.

Non-western immigrants had a much higher share of their employees within hotels and restaurants compared to the whole working population. On the national level we find 3.3 per cent of all employed persons within this industry, while the employed non-western immigrants had 12.4 per cent . We find an even more biased pattern as industrial cleaning is concerned, 0.8 per cent among employed in total versus 6.2 per cent among employed non-western immigrants worked within this industry.

Many non-westerners within elementary occupations

The register-based employment statistics now also include distribution by occupation. However, employed persons within the health enterprises and municipal and county administration are not yet included in the tables with distribution by occupation. The distribution based on 9 main groups of occupation reveal that non- western employees had a high share within the group of elementary occupations. 25 per cent of the non-western employees worked in this group versus 6.7 per cent in the entire working population (with information of occupation). The western employees are more likely to work within professional occupations. 18.8 per cent of this group had such occupations compared with 10.7 per cent in the whole working population. The non-western workers had a percentage of 6.5 within these occupations.

Private sector has highest share of immigrants.

Distributions by economic sector show that private sector has the largest share of non-western employees with 4.6 per cent. In the state sector there was a similar proportion of 3.2 per cent while the portion was 4.2 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 portion of academic occupations than the private sector.

Higher employment among Norwegian born by foreign-born immigrants

Statistics Norway also releases employment figures for Norwegian born by foreign-born parents. This group had a total employment rate of 56.9 per cent, which was 0.3 percentage points above the level of the parent generation. In absolute numbers, the employed Norwegian born counted 7 800 persons, and more than half of them were between 16 and 25 years old. This is in other words a young group in the population and many of them are likely to be students/pupils not included in the labour force. If we, however, look at the group of employed aged 25 to 39 years (2600 persons), we find an employment rate of 71 per cent, which is 10 percentage points higher than the level in the corresponding age group among the first generation.

It should also be mentioned that persons born in Norway by mothers from Africa had an employment rate of 51 per cent, which is 10 percentage points higher than their parent generation. Also those born by mothers of Eastern Europe (outside the EU) had a considerable higher rate of employment, 68 per cent versus 56 among the first generation.

Tables:

• Table 1 Table 1. Employed by region of birth, sex and generation. Per cent of persons aged 16-74 years and in absolute figures. Q4 2003 and Q4 2004
• Table 2 Table 2. Employed by region of birth, sex and generation. Per cent of persons aged 16-74 years and in absolute figures. Q4 2004.
• 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 2004
• 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 2003 and Q4 2004
• 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 2004
• Table 6 Employed immigrants aged 16-74 years, by region of birth and selected industries. Q4 2004. Per cent
• Table 7 Self employed immigrants aged 16-74 years by region of birth and selected industry. Q4 2004. Per cent
• Table 8 Self-employed immigrants 16-74 years by region of birth and selected industries. Per cent and absolute numbers. Q4 2004.
• 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 2003 and 2004
• Table 10 Employees by economic sector and immigrant-background. Q4 2003 and 2004
• Table 11 Employees by occupational groups and region of birth. Q4 2003 and 2004