The Arctic case study

Tromsø is one of the fastest growing towns in Europe, and follows the trend of urbanisation, as this is seen as a central feature and reality in the arctic (Dybbroe and others Reference Dybbroe, Dahl and Muller-Wille2010). The population includes people from approximately 144 nations. Because it hosts the world's northernmost university, a big university hospital and has a local labour market requiring higher education, many of the 68,239 inhabitants have highly skilled occupations.

The main empirical data in this study is biographical interviews with 17 highly skilled immigrants from 13 nations (12 women and five men); some of the interviews were conducted with Dr. M. Aure (see Fossland and Aure Reference Fossland and Aure2011). This is a very open form of interviewing that supports informants in constructing narratives about the long time span of their lives (Fossland and Thorsen Reference Fossland and Thorsen2010). To get in touch with people with a broader overview of the local labour market, I also chose to interview the biggest recruitment agencies in Tromsø. I had a special focus on labour market participation in both forms of interviews.

Over half of the migrants were from non-western countries (including Eastern European countries) and all of them (with one exception) had lived in Norway for more than 3–4 years. They had all attended the same recruitment programme referred to above, with the intention of improving their positions on the local labour market. In order to be selected to this program they needed to be over 25 years old (they are from 30–49), have good language skills, higher education and relevant work experience. They are educated as doctors, psychologists, lawyers, civil engineers, social scientists, health scientists, language scientists and humanists. Four of them had doctoral degrees and many spoke several foreign languages. According to research, education and language are really important when hiring immigrants in Norway (Brekke Reference Brekke2008).

To answer why highly skilled migrants have problems securing work in an Arctic region that needs highly skilled workers three main findings are highlighted; the negotiations related to a) skills and international competence in different sectors of the labour market, b) family and life stage c) employers and work related networks.

Skills and international competence in the Arctic labour market

The participants in the programme had relatively good language skills and higher education, but for many of them, such language skills turned out to be insufficiently good (Fossland and Aure Reference Fossland and Aure2011). Many experienced that it was expected that workers with higher education should have very good or advanced language skills. This is in line with Orupabo (Reference Orupabo, Dahlgren and Ljunggren2010), who finds that many highly educated immigrants feel that they have to start all over again to be recognised in the Norwegian labour market. Nearly all the participants wanted to improve their situation because they experienced that their education was too country specific (in accordance to Norwegian research, Brekke Reference Brekke2008) and not directly transferable to Norwegian conditions. For some of the participants this also included programmes that required authentication, such as for one psychologist. In line with both Csedö (Reference Csedö2008) and Brekke (Reference Brekke2008), I find that linguistic competence, country specific human capital and culture are essential for the integration into the local labour market, but there are some exceptions, as a representative from one major local recruitment agency stated;

For the two architects in this study it appeared that the employers appreciate that they have international competence. The broader picture is that the findings are in line with Csedö (Reference Csedö2008), who found that immigrants’ language skills and international work experience is rarely credited in the domestic labour market. According to her, this applies especially to jobs requiring higher education. It is considered obvious that highly educated workers speak the language fluently, at an advanced level. There were large variations in language skills, and often this was connected to the different quality of the language courses (if it was on an academic level, if it was suitable for work and if they learned social and relational skills and to transfer foreign knowledge into the local context) the immigrants had taken. This seemed to affect how they tackled the ‘translations’ related to their education and other job-related situations.

The value of professionals and graduates with human capital is not the same in all contexts, sectors or parts of the labour market. This depends on the individuals’ capacity to transfer their competencies across borders (and negotiate their high skills and international competence) and the demand for labour in the different sectors of the market. Skills are therefore not necessarily equivalent to education. In line with Chiswick and others who argue that formal education systems are associated with the production of general skills, labour markets seems to be more linked to the acquisition of job-specific skills including ‘labour market information, destination language proficiency, occupational licenses, certification or credentials, as well as more task-specific skills’ (Chiswick and others Reference Chiswick, Lee and Miller2005: 488).

Gender, life stage and family negotiations

The risk of not getting a job was also connected to gender and family obligations and the widening time span since the migrants’ previous high skilled job (or any relevant work at all). Some of the older participants, and especially men, found it hard not to participate in their family economy. According to the concept of Connell and Messerschmitt (Reference Connell and Messerschmitt2005) entitled ‘hegemonic masculinity’ they felt that their masculinity was threatened when not finding work or only working part-time in a job in which they could not use their education. All the participants in ‘Global future’ had a family, but it was especially women that were held away from work for a long period of time because they were home with children. Many of them got children at a critical point in their job searching and language training processes, when it was especially important that they improved their positions in the local labour market. Because many found themselves in a very traditionally gendered position at home and had a lack of other family members or networks that could help them to take care of their children, many of them got the biggest part of this work, like June (34).

Even though June was very interested in learning more Norwegian and to improve her situation, it was hard to combine it with taking care of small children. Her husband had a stable job, and earned more money than she could do, so it was not discussed at all who would be the one to take care of the house and the children. For many of the participants the problems with entering the local labour market was clearly linked to these dilemmas. The ‘trajectory’ from being unemployed to the position of being a mother became a relief from job-hunting and a break from an uncertain job market. This happened for many of them during a critical phase of their lifetime, when they had to adapt to the Norwegian society and establish themselves on the local labour market. Many felt it was difficult to combine language courses with, for instance, a temporary job, or care for children. Due to other commitments, this came at the bottom of the list of daily priorities. While they stayed at home only a few of the women had extended contact with other ethnic Norwegians. Nearly all their contact with others was with women or families that spoke their native language or were in the same situation. At the same time, when the number of years since they had a relevant professional work and language training was increasing, it seemed difficult to get into or back to work in a foreign country. Many of the female participants seem to lose their high ambitions for a long period (especially when their children were small). Because unemployment in Norway is very rare, and because they experienced difficulties getting work, some lost a lot of confidence and felt that they were in a miserable situation. For many, it takes a long time before they start applying for work again, often longer than they could imagine. Liversage (Reference Liversage2009) underlines that migrants are in a particularly vulnerable phase after arriving to the new country, in relation to getting relevant work. As illustrated, age, family situation and time since migration play a central role especially for high skilled migrant women's labour market participation. These findings illustrate how temporalities of lifetime and historical time are important variables for understanding labour market incorporation.

Negotiations with employers and work-related networks

During the programme period, seven participants obtained jobs that matched their skills, two had started their own businesses, three were offered board positions and four had begun studies. These processes demonstrated that work-related networks meant a lot in relation to recruitment. Especially weak ties (Granovetter Reference Granovetter1973) seemed important, because it gave relevant job information, and important knowledge about the local labour market (Fossland and Aure Reference Fossland and Aure2011). This also gave important training to get ‘in position’ and to be able to negotiate with employers. One of those who secured work, Anne (37), got in contact with her husband's network. A lot of these persons had higher education and knew others with relevant knowledge about parts of the labour market that were of special interests. These contacts had therefore crucial importance for her entrance into the high skilled labour market. She describes it like this;

Anne succeeded in securing an appropriate, permanent job in a very competitive academic organisation that is known for extensive use of temporary positions. Through her informal networks, she learned how to present herself, what kind of work her department needed and how to speak and behave. She learned how to make use of her previous education in new arenas. In this way, the network helped her to ‘translate’ her expertise so that it was considered relevant in Norway. This illustrates Csedö's (Reference Csedö2008: 804) point, that language proficiency and recognition of foreign credentials depends on the individuals’ ability to signal the value of their qualifications and negotiate with employers in the receiving context. Many researchers emphasise the importance of work related networks and knowledge of Norwegian society and working life (Brekke Reference Brekke2008; Villund Reference Villund2008). Although several of the participants experienced great difficulties in learning new cultural codes and adapting to the local labour market, some of them were more successful than others. Many told that to get work they also needed to accept sporadic and unpredictable work and stand out as a flexible, sociable person that can adapt quickly to changing situations. They need to strengthen their position, both socially and in accordance to various experiences. But as we have seen, networks can also contribute to increased segregation and marginalisation, in the opposite sense. In many cases getting networks was also a question of being introduced to the right networks and what kind of network one takes part in. This also depends on how much time you invest in securing work-related skills and contacts, how quickly you learn new things, get work experience, get good references and acquire local knowledge. Such knowledge and awareness of local conditions seemed to be important both to get a job and to master the social codes at local workplaces. But many of the participants had little general knowledge of Norwegian work life and rules, even though many had work experience in Norway. Representatives from recruitment agencies mentioned this as one of ‘the most important reasons why very good qualified migrants don't get picked by employers in selections rounds’ as one of them said. But this is not the whole picture.

Getting work is also a two-sided process, beyond ‘doing the right things’. The interviews proved that many discriminating processes were going on. Several of the participants said that recruitment agencies and employers had biased attitudes towards them and that they were being surpassed by others in the competition for work. According to the recruitment agencies, many employers do not want to risk hiring foreign workers, not necessarily because they have had negative experiences themselves, but because they see the employment of foreign workers as increasing the chance of potential problems at the workplace. The interviews demonstrate that even if employers need highly educated migrants, they do not use their opportunities to interview or try out foreign jobseekers to see if they have the qualifications they request. Employers fear that hiring immigrants can lead to more conflicts and additional costs, due to communication and culture. As some of them see it, this kind of employment involves a large but also uncertain investment. Good employment protection and a compressed wage structure in Norway may contribute to employers refusing to hire workers with a foreign background (Barth and others Reference Barth, Bratsberg and Raaum2004). According to Rogstad and Orupabo (Reference Rogstad and Orupabo2007) language skills, relevance of education and knowledge of local conditions can represent both legitimate and illegitimate barriers in the local labour market. Often this is difficult to prove, because many employees will not state this and many foreign workers will never even get into a position where they can demonstrate their qualifications. ‘I was not invited to the interview process. They don't even want to hear my ideas’, as one puts this. Rogstad and Orupabo (Reference Rogstad and Orupabo2007) has shown that the use of informal criteria and networks in hiring processes can be understood as employers attempt to reduce uncertainty in the recruitment process, while Hansen (Reference Hansen1997) shows that more than 50 percent of job recruitment in Norway goes through networks. In line with Csedö (Reference Csedö2008), the question of competence transferability and applicability seems to a large extent to be a question of linguistic and social competence. Competence is not just a question of values and judgments, but also about whether the job seeker is able to make his or her background relevant to others, work related networks and employers, and negotiate their way into the local labour market.