Employment among immigrants, register-based, 2008, 4th quarter

A growth of 0.9 percentage points during the last year was much weaker compared to the growth of 3.2 percentage points from the fourth quarter of 2006 to 2007. In absolute numbers, there was however a growth of nearly 28 000 employed immigrants out of a total growth of 41 000 employed people (15-74 years of age) in Norway from the fourth quarter of 2007 to 2008.

The growth among immigrants versus the stagnation in the whole population is related to the fact that the groups from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe outside the EU and immigrant women in general, have the strongest representation within industry groups that were not particularly affected by the declining economic trends that occurred in the second half of the last year. The male dominated industry groups Manufacturing and Construction were primarily affected by this decline.

Decrease among immigrants from the Eastern EU countries

Immigrants from the EU countries in Eastern Europe was the only immigrant group that experienced a decline in the employment rate during the last year, at 2.4 percentage points (table 1), but only men within this group were affected by a decrease (at 4.9 percentage points). It should be noted that these immigrant men had an unusually high employment rate in the fourth quarter of 2007. Among women, there was on the contrary, a slight increase of 0.9 percentage points within this group. This tendency is due to the decline in the construction industry where men from the Eastern European EU countries have been strongly represented during recent years.

Still a high level among EU immigrants

Immigrants from the EU countries, who mainly consist of labour immigrants, had employment rates slightly above the average level of the whole population at 71.6 per cent (table 1). As for the other groups concerned, the rates were as follows: Immigrants from South and Central America 66.1 per cent, North America and Oceania 65.7 per cent, Eastern Europe outside the EU 63.2 per cent, Asia 56.8 per cent and Africa 49.7 per cent.

One of the factors behind the low employment rates among the Africans and the Asians, is a relatively high proportion of refugees with a short period of residence in Norway within these groups, especially the African group. Many of the refugees and their reunified families are participating in the introduction programmes and are thus outside the labour force during the first two years of their residence in Norway. In addition, there are also very low employment rates among women from some Asian and African countries irrespective of their period of residence in Norway, which also reduces the average rates within these groups (table 9).

Greatest gap to the whole population among immigrant women

Male immigrants had an employment rate of 69.3 per cent, while the female immigrants had 58.7 per cent employed in the fourth quarter of 2008 (table 1). In the population as a whole, the rates were 74.5 and 68.5 per cent respectively. Thus, the gap to the respective sexes in the population as a whole was twice as large among immigrant women (10 percentage points) as it was among men (5 percentage points) with regard to the level of employment. However, the female immigrants experienced a certain growth in the employment rate from the fourth quarter of 2007 to 2008 of 1.4 percentage points versus a marginal growth of 0.1 percentage points among immigrant males. In the population as a whole, the female employment rate advanced only 0.1 percentage points, while the males had a slight reduction at 0.3 percentage points.

Health and social services is the largest group

We find many similarities among employed immigrants and the employed in total, such as the portions according to Manufacturing, Retail trade, Transport and communication and Health and social services (table 6). The latter is moreover the largest industry group irrespective of immigrant background. However, on the other hand, the immigrants from Eastern Europe outside the EU, Asia, Africa and Latin America had a much higher share of employees within Hotels and restaurants compared to the working population as a whole. At a national level, we find 3.2 per cent of all employed persons within this industry, while the aforementioned employed immigrants had 11.4 per cent. We find an even more biased pattern as Industrial cleaning is concerned; 0.8 per cent among the employed in total versus 5.8 per cent among the employed immigrants from those world regions mentioned above worked within this industry.

Norwegian-born with immigrants parents (descendants)

This group constitute a rather young population where nearly one half are below 21 years of age (among those between 15 and 74 years of age), and many are likely to be students/pupils and thus not included in the labour force. If we, however, look at the group of employed aged 20 to 24 years, the employment rate was 70.4 per cent, which is 9 percentage points higher than the employment rate in the same age group among immigrants and 4.3 percentage points below the total average rate for this age group (table 2). We also see much the same pattern among those aged 25 to 29. The Norwegian-born with immigrant parents is still a small group in the labour market, consisting of 13 741 employed persons in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Tables:

• Table 1 Employed, by immigrant category, region of birth and sex . Q4 2007 and 2008. Absolute figures and in per cent of persons aged 15-74 years in each group
• Table 2 Employed, by immigrant category, world region of birth and age. Absolute figures and in per cent of persons in total in each group. Q4 2008
• Table 3 Employed, by immigrant category, world region of birth, sex and labour market status. Absolute figures and in per cent of persons aged 15-74 years in each group. Q4 2008
• Table 4 Employed immigrants by world region of birth and period of residence in Norway. Absolute figures and in per cent of persons aged 15-74 years in each group. Q4 2008
• Table 5 Employed, by period of residence in Norway, age and world region of birth. Absolute figures and in per cent of persons in total in each group. Q4 2008
• Table 6 Employed aged 15-74 years, by selected industries, immigrant background and country group of birth. Q4 2008. Per cent
• Table 7 Employed aged 15-74 years, by elected industries and world region of birth. Per cent. Q4. 2008.
• Table 8 Employed immigrants aged 15-74 years by selected industries and world region of birth. Absolute figures and in per cent of employed in total within each group. Q4 2008
• Table 9 Employed immigrants, by selcted countries of birth and sex. Absolute figures and in per cent of persons aged 15-74 years within each group Q4 2008
• Table 10 Employees, by immigrant-background, country group of birth and economic sector. Absolute figures and in per cent. Q4 2007 and 2008
• Table 11 Employees, by economic sector, sex and world region of birth.Absolute figures and percent.Q42008.
• Table 12 Employed by occupational groups and country group of birth. Absolute numbers and in per cent. Q4 2008
• Table 13 Employed, by county of residence and country group of birth. Absolute numbers and in per cent of people 15-74 years in each group. Q4 2007 and 2008
• Table 14 People aged 15-74 years, by sex, world region of birth and labour force status. Q4 2008
• Table 15 People aged 15-74 years by sex, world region of birth and labour force status. Per cent. Q4 2008