Norwegian language training and the introduction programme addressed in this report are regulated by the Introduction Act of 2003.
A main finding in this report is that persons who have obtained level B1/B2 have a better labour market situation than those who have obtained level A1/A2. While two out of three of those at B1/B2 level were employed in 2019, the share was less than 50 per cent among those at A1/A2 level. At the same time, there is a clear tendency that the differences between the two levels are greater among women than among men.
There are significant differences by country background. For men, we find the greatest differences in employment rate between the B1/B2 and the A1/A2 group among those from Ethiopia, Iran, Afghanistan and Congo. Similarly for women, the largest differences among those from countries like Syria, Eritrea and Iran, all with significantly higher employment rate among the B1/B2 group.
There are also differences between these two groups among unemployed. Among other things, the share receiving social assistance is more than three times higher, and the share with unknown status twice as high in the A1/A2 group than the B1/B2 group.
The relationship between Norwegian language skills and the labour market situation can go either way. Good language skills enhance labour market participation and at the same time employment situation affects one's opportunities to learn Norwegian. Language skills are to a greater extent linked to different rights in society through legislative changes in recent years, and several previous studies show that employers may have little knowledge of the Norwegian language test.
Test results suggest that writing is the most difficult skill for immigrants to obtain. Oral communication is the subtest that most people have taken. Candidates do not receive an overall assessment or "overall grade" through the Norwegian language test, we have however used the best subtest result when we study the implications of test results on labour marked status among former participants.
Individual characteristics and time after graduation, among other things, affect their degree of participation in the labour market. The share of employed or under education varies from cohort to cohort and there are relatively large differences between women and men. The level of education among former participants is generally low, and as many as seven out of ten have their highest level of education at either primary or secondary school level. Six out of ten of those who have participated in the introduction programme have not taken the Norwegian language test. This is partly due to earlier cohorts have taken previous versions of the test, for example Norwegian tests 2 and 3.