This edition’s In Focus looks at what the numbers say about labour
immigration to the Nordic countries. We talk to Eures consultants, job
seekers and employers and Nordic embassies in the south:
“The number of people who come to us to ask about work has tripled
in just a few years, and we also see different groups of people,” says
Sofia Keramida at the Swedish embassy in Athens. The future is bleak in
Spain too, says Antonio Alonso-Villaverde. He works with Swedish
authorities to recruit doctors from Spain. But the motives for moving
north have changed a lot since he arrived in Sweden in 2000 to finish
his speciality training, he tells the Nordic Labour Journal: now people
are driven by necessity rather than a dream to do something
new.
Iceland too has noticed an increase in the number of job seekers who
want to escape the hardest hit southern European countries. “We think
we have a financial crisis here in Iceland, but that is a
misunderstanding,” says Friðbjörn Steinssos, product manager at the
tinsmiths Stjörnublikk. Portuguese who worked with the company before
but who lost their jobs when the crisis hit Iceland often approach him.
Now several of them are back working there.
The European crisis is not over. Latest figures from the OECD shows
steady unemployment in the south of Europe and in Spain it is even
rising. Should we expect a wave of labour immigrants to the Nordic
countries?
Greek siblings Iro and Dimitris are typical labour migrants: they
seek what they know. Contacts are important when choosing destination.
Norway would not have been Dimitri’s first choice if his sister was not
already there.
So far OECD’s figures do not indicate a wave from crisis-hit
southern European countries. Not even to Norway where unemployment is
lower than in any other Nordic country.
“Despite the Euro crisis we see no immigrant wave from southern
Europe,” says Norway’s Minister of Labour Anniken Huitfeldt.
Perhaps the recruitment measures reflect the actual situation: we
want more workers as long as they have the desired skills. Ironically
that is exactly what the crisis-hit countries also want when they
recruit Swedish youths with language skills to their own tourist
industry.
