Norway: third-world migration destroys oil fortune
http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/politikk/article1348280.ece
NHO: The entire oil fortune can get lost
(Translation: NHO = Nringslivets Hovedorganisasjon = The Economy's Central Organisation)
Low professional activity among immigrants can lead to enormous cost
for Norway in the upcoming decades. Immigration policy needs to be
totally changed, in order to avoid serious national economic trouble,
says NHO.
This dramatic perspective is being outlined in the NHO magazine
Horisont coming out this week. Together with several well-known
researchers, NHO experts describe a development which these last years has gone from mad to worse, and which will accelerate additionally in the near future:
Only until 2015, the immigrants' share of the population will double,
according to Statistisk Sentralbyr. The portion of third-world
youngsters will grow strongly.
Not participating
This group, especially its male half, encounters big problems when
trying to make it through the educational system. At the outset,
non-western immigrants participate to a much lower degree in
professional activity than the ethnic norwegian population. Up to now, there is little in sight which would indicate a change to the better – rather the opposite.
This development is timed to coincide with the older population wave of the ethnic norwegian population. Norwegian business and the economy as a whole will end up in a crossfire between a norwegian population growing older all the time, and a strongly growing immigrant population with low professional activity and high social benefits dependency.
The result is a decline of the portion of job owners in Norway. A
decline by seven percent corresponds to the loss of the entire oil
fortune. (tn: !!!) That this will happen can not be excluded, becomes
evident from NHO's own calculations.
Danish omen
In Denmark, there are some more third-world immigrants than in Norway. At the same time, this group's professional activity is still smaller than here. A Danish think tank has undertaken what they call a cautious estimation of the immigrants' contribution to Danish society. The result is a loss of between 30 and 50 billion (thousand million) crowns ('kroner') each and every year. (tn: something like 5 billion euros)
A corresponding research has as yet not been undertaken in Norway. But professor Kjetil Storesletten of Oslo university says to Horisont, that the immigrants' contribution to the economy probably also is negative in Norway.
Storesletten says, the probability that immigrants get a job and keep
it depends on their country of origin. Immigration to Norway these last years was strongest from countries where immigrants have the lowest qualifications.
'To let in immigrants with a low education leads us nowhere. We can no longer continue with our traditional immigration policiy', says
Storesletten.
Slaughtering the policy on immigration
In an article of their own, NHO experts Kenneth Stien, Torill Ldemel
and Baard Meidell Johannesen shoot a broadside against the train of
thoughts which have shaped norwegian immigration policy of recent
years. Totally in contrast to what various politicians of various
governments have alleged during these last decades, the problem will
not be solved 'by elbow' through mass immigration. Growing immigration will in the best of cases postpone the demographic crisis we shall meet, sooner or later.
However, Norway's perspective is much darker than it is in any event:
In Norway, social benefits are manifold and wages for unqualified
workers among the highest in the world. At the same time, wages for
highly qualified workers are low, and taxes are high. An immigrant
getting a permission to stay in Norway becomes part of a comprehensive social security system.
Put together, this leads to predominantly low-education and ditto
qualification persons coming to Norway. Existing statistics show that
there is a clear relation between the education undergone in the land
of origin and professional activity in Norway – lower education leads
to lower professional activity. What Norway's economy needs most are
highly qualified workers. These do not come, however.
Taking a look at the educational statistics, it becomes evident that 40 % of immigrant apprentices which began an advanced education in 1999, broke off this education in the course of five years. This group will find the biggest problems later in life to get a job. 'We are at a point where we get a group of youngsters having norwegian and foreign background, which will end up directly in the social security system, without ever having participated in professional life', write these three authors.
