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Weekly Bulletin issue no. 47, 1997

Unemployment among immigrants, 3rd quarter 1997:

Unemployment drops among immigrants


Registered unemployment among immigrants declined faster than in the general population from August 1996 to August 1997. Unemployment fell from 13 to 10.8 per cent among immigrants, while it fell from 4.5 to 3.5 per cent for the entire population. The biggest decline in joblessness was among immigrants from South and Central America.

In August 1997, 11,595 first-generation immigrants, down 1,266 from August last year, were registered as unemployed in Norway. At the same time the number of immigrants in ordinary public sector job creation programmes declined by 1,636 persons during the same period. Consequently, 2,902 fewer immigrants are registered as unemployed or enrolled in programmes.

The decline in the number of immigrants in job programmes applied to all immigrant groups and was the largest among Africans. Immigrants are strongly represented in job schemes. In August this year immigrants accounted for 28.2 per cent of all participants in ordinary job programmes, against 21.6 per cent the year before.

Immigrants from Eastern Europe

The number of registered unemployed persons went down for all immigrant groups except for those from Eastern Europe. The decline in the unemployment rates from August last year to August this year was four percentage points for immigrants from South and Central America and 3.5 percentage points for immigrants from Asia. More immigrants from Eastern Europe were registered as unemployed during the same period, mainly due to an increase in refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina. The unemployment rate nonetheless dropped during the period for the group. The reason is that even more East Europeans have found work, so the workforce has increased relatively more than the number of unemployed.

New Statistics

Unemployment among immigrants, 3rd quarter 1997.
Stat

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 47, 1997