This spring, the Norwegian Association for the Advancement of Social Welfare ( Sammen om en jobb ) organizedthe 2025 Poverty Hearing in collaboration with the Welfare Alliance-EAPN.
The hearing brought together dedicated job seekers, researchers, politicians, mentors, and other interested parties to share experiences and discuss how we can work together to combat poverty, discrimination, and exclusion in the workplace, with a particular focus on highly educated immigrants.
Public hearings like this one are particularly important for amplifying the voices of those who are often not heard.
Sam Sorodi, Larissa Julia Razniak, Sylvia Dilhani Arnesen, and Melina Kello. Photo: Erlend Skarsgard Nyheim/SAJO
Discrimination in the Workplace—What Do We Know? Findings from Research
Åsne Danielsen from the Institute for Urban and Regional Research (OsloMet) opened the hearing by presenting findings from an ongoing research project in the City of Oslo. The project is being conducted for the IMDi, which is developing a tool to map discrimination and racism in Norwegian municipalities.
Discrimination is defined here as unjustified differential treatment. Racism, in addition, emphasizes attitudes and intentions—often involving some form of ranking among groups.
The project finds that highly educated immigrants report more discrimination—perhaps due to higher expectations and a less diverse labor market, particularly at the top. This is linked to the so-called integration paradox: The longer one has lived in Norway, the more discrimination one reports. One possible explanation for this, says Danielsen, is that people feel more secure and become more aware of injustice over time.
Figures from the research project conducted by the City of Oslo:
Family reunification immigrants make up the largest group of immigrants in Oslo, followed by labor immigrants and international students
47% of immigrants have a college degree
Immigrants are often overqualified for the jobs they get, even after several years in Norway
26% have experienced discrimination in the workplace, often related to their name, background, or skin color
Key findings of the research project in the City of Oslo:
Wages are linked to country of origin. In particular, people from countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Oceania are often paid less than those born in Norway with comparable education and work experience.
Many report that they are unable to find work because of their country of origin, and they also believe that their names affect their chances of getting a job. Names typically found in Africa or the Middle East result in a lower chance of being called in for an interview—a correlation that was also recently demonstrated in a study conducted by Larsen and Midtbøen (Institute for Social Research - Open Archive: The Ethnic Hierarchy: Discrimination Based on National Origin, Religion, and Skin Color in the Norwegian Labor Market)
Racism and discrimination experienced in the workplace can be referred to as “minority stress.” In addition to the usual stress of the job, employees from minority backgrounds must also deal with discrimination—for example, in the form of patients who refuse to see a doctor with a “foreign” name. This creates additional stress.
Measures proposed in the research project for the City of Oslo:
Greater awareness of diversity, racism, and discrimination
Meeting Places and Awareness-Raising Efforts
A call for greater use of "blind recruitment," meaning that factors often linked to implicit biases and (unintentional) discrimination—such as age, gender, name, and ethnic origin—are removed from resumes and application materials
What structural barriers do highly educated immigrants face in the Norwegian labor market?
Research-based knowledge is important and helps us gain insight into issues. However, we also need to hear the voices and listen to the experiences of those who have firsthand experience with the problems of discrimination in the labor market.
Larissa Julia Razniak and Melina Kello are former mentees in the “ Sammen om en jobb ” program. Sam Sorodi and Sylvia Dilhani Arnesen are mentors. Together, they shared their experiences and insights and sought to address the structural barriers that highly educated candidates with immigrant backgrounds face in the job search process.
Recognition of Education and Language Proficiency
Larissa is a trained psychologist who grew up in Germany and moved to Norway in 2023. Today, she works as a career counselor at iFront Karriere. When she moved, she thought everything would go smoothly, since she had extensive experience from her home country and psychologists are in high demand in the job market. Things didn’t go quite as planned. Larissa spent a lot of time trying to understand the job market and started out with unrelated odd jobs at a Christmas market and in a daycare center.
“Getting your education recognized is a barrier to finding a job,” Larissa explains, “but even if you get it recognized, that doesn’t mean you’ll get relevant job. I know many people who have had their education recognized but are working in daycare, and that was hard for me to see. Recognition takes a long time, and you have no idea what’s happening in the process or what it takes to get it. It’s one thing that my education isn’t the same as the Norwegian system, but I lacked information about what it takes to get recognition.”
Melina is also a psychologist, originally from Albania. She began her life in Norway by waiting 18 months for her education to be recognized—which, in the end, was not approved. Today, Melina works as a program coordinator at Catalysts Norway.
She, too, found the process of having her education recognized to be lacking in transparency, and she also says she began to doubt herself: Was her expertise relevant? Would she have to start her career from scratch? She experienced stress and pressure, both from Norway and her home country, in addition to financial challenges and a lack of financial independence. Melina is committed to ensuring that access to language training is not a structural barrier, and she advocates for free Norwegian language courses for everyone, regardless of visa status.
“Actually, I want to change the entire integration process,” she says. “I want more meritocracy: to give qualified people relevant positions based on their skills, not on their nationality or ethnicity. Then there would be room for more people.”
When Sylvia was furloughed during the COVID-19 pandemic, she suddenly found herself actively looking for a job. She did a lot of research and learned about the job search process, and once she landed a new job herself, she decided to share her knowledge and experience from the job search process with others by becoming a mentor at Sammen om en jobb. Sylvia has worked with six mentees since 2021.
Employers and Experience
Sylvia points out that a lack of experience in Norway often acts as a barrier to entering the job market.
“Employers need to get better at giving people a chance,” she says. “On the one hand, we have the requirement for Norwegian work experience; on the other, we have employers who aren’t willing to provide that experience. Maybe we could have better access to internships for adult immigrants? Because just getting a foot in the door could open many doors.”
Prevention, mindset change, and mental health
Sammen om en jobb -mentor Sam is an immigrant himself, but has lived in Norway for a long time. He is the founder of A4 Coaching & Consulting AS, where he devotes 10% of his time to volunteer work that makes a positive difference for others. Sam works extensively with sick leave and leadership, and is a clear voice in the debate surrounding workplace inclusion:
“Over 600,000 people are outside the labor market, even as the labor market is crying out for workers. The days of just skimming the cream off the top are over; we have to make an effort to get people into jobs and keep them there,” he argues, continuing: “Many of those 600,000 are more than qualified to work. We need a shift in mindset among employers. If we can’t sort this out, we may have to find a way to fix it instead.”
All the panelists from “ Sammen om en jobb ” agree on the importance of mental health, motivation, and the ability to persevere through a demanding process. Sam says that mental health challenges may be job seekers’ biggest challenge, while Melina and Larissa describe the mentoring program as a place where they finally felt seen and recognized as valuable contributors, and where they received the support, practical information, and encouragement they needed.
How do we address these challenges?
Understanding how candidates experience the job search process is crucial. But insight alone isn’t enough to bring about change. We need people with the power to influence to lead change initiatives. In other words, we need politicians on our team. That’s why we brought on board Birgit Kjerstad from the Socialist Left Party (SV), Maria Qureshi from the Labor Party, Ismail Ali Hussein from the Liberal Party, and Olga Marie Salen Bratthaug from the Christian Democratic Party.
(Wondering what happened to the Conservative Party, the Progress Party, the Socialist Party, and the Red Party? — There'll probably be another one next time!)
What needs to be done to ensure that highly educated immigrants can put their skills to use?
The Socialist Left Party (SV) and the Labor Party (Ap) are concerned about language and the (lack of) diversity in recruitment processes.
“Language and communication are important to employers,” says Birgit of the Socialist Left Party (SV), adding that “...it’s frustrating that there are no language programs available for immigrant workers.”
Maria Qureshi of the Labor Party believes that “a lack of representation in leadership and recruitment can carry over into recruitment processes” (through the equality trap*) and that “we need to have the business community on board with this development. For example, by ensuring greater diversity in leadership as a good start.”
Ismail Ali Hussein of the Liberal Party believes that Norwegian “language protectionism” can be an obstacle in job-seeking processes. He is also concerned about how settlement patterns can act as barriers to integration:
“The resettlement of refugees cannot be a matter of regional policy, and we cannot send refugees to rural areas simply because they are short on people.”
Olga Marie Salen Bratthaug of the Christian Democratic Party (KrF) emphasizes that getting people into work is beneficial for everyone and that this is a challenge that must be addressed through collaboration between the private, public, and nonprofit sectors; at the same time, she is clear that we must protect the framework governing working life:
“People don’t want temporary jobs; work means freedom and security, and we should protect the well-ordered working life we have rather than changing the framework and lowering standards.”
Ismail disagrees on this point and would rather see more access to temporary positions, which he believes could make it less risky—and thus easier—to hire candidates who may not be “perfect.”
Summary
It’s difficult to answer the question, “What will you, as politicians, do to solve a problem?” But it’s important that the questions are asked, that voices are heard, and that conversations take place—even when we don’t get clear answers.
The 2025 Poverty Hearing showed just how complex the problem is and how important it is to listen to those who are living through it. Moving forward requires more than just measures: it requires changes in attitudes, systems, and policies. Voices like Larissa’s, Melina’s, Sylvia’s, and Sam’s remind us that this is about people. Their expertise is a resource we cannot afford to waste.