Now we see the true colours of the blue-blue government, who like in the UK are trying to appease the small business owners and blue meanies in Norway.
On the other hand they have a largely socialist agenda- opening up the state pension fund to pay for infrastructure and allowing more money per head to those most vunerable in society.
However the first thing to note is that they are open for more temporary workers and they have now removed a subsidy which allowed people on lower incomes to own their own home. These will both lead to more people being dependent on state money and a culture where working is less attractive than being on social benefits.
The national "house bank" is a state initiative to underwrite higher risk, lower interest loans for people like us in fact, who want to get on the property market but are exposed to temporary contracts and a lack of capital. Removing the low interest will directly lead to repossessions and will make borderline people with health issues see that work does not lend itself and going on social security sickness benefits is more attractive. It is laughably easy in norway to get onto "trygd" benefits and that I have not heard one ioata on in the new budget: originally the Frp party campaigned that these people should be out shovelling snow, but of course that takes beaurocracy. In fact that is an area for immediate cut- support for getting people into work.
Allegedly to counter balance getting people into work, the pale-blue-rinse-quite-socialist-spender government now will allow employers to have more freedom to employ people on (endless) temporary contracts. The finance minister claims that this will allow people who have been out of working life to get a foot hold. In effect it will mean that more people join the queue at NAV, the health, social security and work agency, when it suits all employers.
Excluding layabouts who have "social angst" and the type of bad backs which allows them to go mysteriously on holiday to Tenerife each year, but not work a day in ten years, then Norway has extrememly low unemployment despite having the highest unemployment benefits in Europe. The fact is there is a working culture here and it is relatively easy to both get work and to get a permanent contract, which leads to consumer-confidence and personal security and home ownership.
Opening up for more temporary employment will mean a much bigger bill for NAV within four years, and a grey area like in the UK where people are fully dependent on state income to top up uncertain and part time work. It will not affect the types of jobs where there is a large element of training or a prerequiste for education - on the one hand employers will want longer term contracts and committment from employees, while on the other employees will seek out companies with permanent contracts and avoid temping once they have enough experience.
By in large the benefits of this new loosening up will be in the service industry, and for some business cultural reason, most ironically, in the same financial industry which now denies mortgages to people on temporary contracts. I already experience the customer service level in private shops and restaurants to be on a par with the former eastern europe, and having people on temporary, seasonal contracts will lead to these positions being more social dumping with surly, untrained and unmotivated staff turning up with the lights on but no interest.
On the other hand it will also lead to more criminality as those in the border line areas of in and out of work begin to see that there is a more steady income to be attained from selling drugs, smuggling, VAT evasion , and fencing dubious sourced items.
My last employer had a policy of trying to have 20% of staff on contract. This prove completely impractical at every level in the organisation- in those positions requiring engineering skills, they got mediocre engineers or those who abused the job as a temporary short term income for a couple of months- hardly time to settle into the job. On the side of administration too, they could get qualified people, but when the temporary position was a required head count and desired to be permanent, they had found that they could not retain staff- they had spent time and effort looking for permanent positions elsewhere and did not even bother to negotiate, they just left.
For me I was more used to contracts and a fair deal of job insecurity and the poor employment protection in the UK. However with the cost of living here I have found that now I am only interested in permanent positions and I am prepared to come down in pay to be able to work within a short commute to reduce costs and increase time with the family. A temporary job now, as I ended a contract which I made into a contract from a permanent job actually, would be that for me too- zero loyalty although I would use a job offer externally to squeeze a permanent position out of the employer!
Another effect is that when a couple have children, it is the partner in temporary employment who is most likely to take sick leave on behalf of the children.
It is already quite easy to employ people temporarily, but there is a border where you must give them a "permanent " contract which gives workers here as good employment rights as workers who are members of unions in Germany for example. So what this means is being able to employ people on successive temp contracts and lay them off when you have a hole in your cash flow or want to pay more profits out. There has been a counter balance in the employer paying some more redundancy but I have not looked into the details of this, and it may be that when a contract ends then there is of course no need for them to pay up: it is the state who will, as in the UK, end up giving out massive hidden subsidies to the type of industries who should stand on their own feet and develop quality service. This will go over into public health provision of course, where private companies and cash restricted departments will do the same to try and save in money when they can stretch a lower level of resources over a period with financial motivation in front of patient need. The state will pick up the tab.
The Frp and Høyre parties (progress party and right of the house pale blue tory party) have many members who are the bourgeois - they own or manage SME sector businesses. An expansion of temporary employment will actually hurt the SME sector in Norway because it will make it easier for people to get into the larger companies in Norway in the oil, petrochemical and service industries where training abounds and also they are then in-the-door for permanent positions or when their position becomes a necessary one. Larger employers see employees as valued resources here, not a commodity of which a large percent can be brushed away easily to improve the free-cash-flow for a quarter. Being able to offer temporary contracts is far more attractive to the SME sector because they have less cash reserves and more obvious peaks and troughs in their turn-over to cost gearing. However they will find that they will struggle more to recruit properly qualified and experienced people who are not attracted to the insecurity of temping.
In trying then to "solve" a small problem of low level unemployment in general - and this being here the actual issues of disaffected youth and immigrants of a non western back ground - the new government will introduce more of a dynamic to place more otherwise productive people into state dependency on an on-off basis, while also presenting the SME sector with fewer good candidates. In reducing the investment in getting these two groups above into training and higher value work, they just create an administrative merry-go-round for NAV for them and for other non qualified staff who previously enjoyed job security and payed taxes year-in-year out, rather than collecting benefits on a frequent periodic basis.
The longer term damage of a temp-contract-society is clear in the UK: more people dependent on the state in hidden figures, less people having access to owning their own homes, more being made homeless because they do not have a steady income, more choosing sick benefits over trying to work, and people staying longer on unemployment benefits while waiting for a permanent job.
Capitalism doesn't care: the blue-blue like to be able to say that they are getting more people into work, as they do in the uk, but they are shifting subsidy and public spending away from improving quality and efficiency through loyal, motivated and highly trained staff over to paying for all the down time and insecurity which follows an expanded part time and temp sector in the economy. That the bill on this social insecurity shifts from other forms of state investment in people, and most likely goes up within this government's first term, capital will just call for cut backs and these will once again affect the non unionised, poorest section of society worst.
The danger is , as with the retail finance sector in oslo, that the level playing field becomes unbalanced and more sectors see the balance sheet short term benefits of employing larger proportions of their staff on temporary contracts. Also with a potential raft of privatistaions, this may lead to as in the UK, an erosion of quality of provision at the point of delivery where on the ground workers are no longer qualified, experienced or motivated in those areas. A culture where people grab temporary work from better paid temp jobs when they end, and misuse the lower end job for temp income with little or no motivation.
It becomes an anti-culture for business and particularly those involved in annual state contracts in newly privatised services- they will never want to employ people permanently until they have a virtual monopoly on provision.
In the UK we have a bigger service sector and on the one hand that soaks up unqualified school leavers, while on the other hand it becomes a kind of soft landing for many graduates and University drop outs who were under achievers and worked part time during their study.
The Scandinavian model of good wages, home ownership, medium high taxes and high permanent employment has been eroded in Sweden and Denmark, where unemployment is far higher than in Norway or Finland.
mandag 11. november 2013
fredag 11. oktober 2013
Living in Norway and Mid Life Early ?
While in a conversation with a GP actually, I was confronted with a fact of life- we get older, we get 2.4 kids and we get antisocial. Don't blame it on Norway.
You have to take a balanced view: you , like me are probably an ex-pat and statistics would say that you moved to Norway due to your better half and started a family.
So here you have to take that big change in life, parenthood, against emigration.
On the other side though, Norway is a bet special- Norwegians are good, polite hosts but they are not on average at all out going and sociable to strangers. If you can imagine moving to Fife, Aberdeenshire or some English county where people are inverted snobs, xenophobes and well-to-do snobs then that is the kind of atmosphere.
As I blogged before, Norway has never been big on immigrants: they had no empire and they were more used to sending their people out to the USA or to sea. So they just aren't used to it, and have all these displaced peoples, generally Muslim to cope with, which when young Somali males are in the picture, are viewed with more than a pinch of skepticism and outright "send them back".
However let us not play the racist card for you and I from developed countries with a native spouse. Here we fall into that which many Norwegians encounter- big city anonymity and non chalence, and small town clanism. If you throw into that the quite healthy extended family orientation of most people here, then you start to see that social lives plus the old 2.4, have fallen into ever-decreasing-circles for the natives.
On the other hand to come back into the imbalance that you can feel about your new social life and lack of it, then as an immigrant you have a few more barriers: you have the language and it subtleties and the different forms of conversation.
Generally I find conversations to be pretty banal round my kids parents and I feel antipathy from several other parents towards me and partly my whole family unfortunately. I just can't get into the rythm of them down here because I don't get the point: I understand the words, but I dont get the tone and the whole point. To be frank I was never any good at small talk and prefer waffeling on and debating bigger topics or interesting stuff, which outside hobbies, have fallen away.
So when you are approaching those parent gatherings or any social event, your new ways into a social life may well be people who are a lot more shy than you are used to, but at least they are not little snobs who can be quite intent and even a little aggressive at blocking you as an immigrant out of the social circle. You are looking to glide in very slowly often or grasp the chance when you meet someone nice and welcoming.
How do you address all this and build a social life?
Well you have to target your energies - decide who in the family and parents - circle at school / barnehage you like and have something in common with, or just feel comfortable with their conversation. Don't rush things, but don't refuse invitations ever!
Your other source of new friends will be through hobbies: your own and your children's. This is my source of chums and chat. Even there it is a little strained.
Take up new hobbies or join clubs which your previous individual efforts fit into, like photography.
Hobby clubs have a kind of commonality of objective conversation which has its own natural ice breakers and ways to get into the chat circle. Clubs and especially hobby clubs are very collective in nature here, they often talk of "we" and there is a natural belonging if you share interests. Sports clubs and activities are also good, golf and 5-a-side being two big in-ways for 30 something males at least. I have a personal reference from the helm of a 8 man boat I raced on, who says I came in very comfortably and was not flashy despite my longer experience.
It is important not to be flashy. Also one sport in particular is problematic- male football. Our local team had a first to third level team. A couple of outsiders, one half english, the other from the next district, played in what they presumed was the main team as there were always enough at training to have at least five a side and turn out a full team if they needed to. These two guys were pretty good at football- and they saw a group of about 5 or 6 players training together with the best coach and asked who they were? Oh, they are the first team. The next time they turned up they asked the firsts coach if they could come up to the team, to which the blunt reply from a trainer with 6 to 8 players was, "No, the team is full". That my friends is typical small town Norway! It may have taken them years to get invited to train a little and sit on the bench for the first team, who then drew on their favoured mates in the second to make up the first 11.
It is all a very painful boring catch a monkey with some people and some social circles you then come into: the best advice is that Norwegians do not like expectations (apart from North Norway folk who are virtually in another universe and often super sociable and welcoming) - the usual expectations you may have from North America or the EU in general must be forgotten- do not expect dinner party invitations and trips to their cabins as an opening gambit with the vast majority. Expect to take some time to come even into the circle of conversation!
The very big plus side is that it is very true that once you make a friend in Norway, you make a very good friend - mi casa, su casa. Then it can be a bit too much and difficult to reciprocate! Cabins, boats, hunting.....
This is though a culture clash to some extent: I think average UK, US, Canada, Antipodean, French, Dutch, Spanish and Italiens are far more used to having a wider circle of friends, and having a more fluent relationship to new acquaintances and how new friendships develop and old fall away. Also for better or for worst, our circle of friends have become more important than our extended family and we spend more time with them outside work than we do with our parents.
As a Londoner said to me he misses "the banter...they have no banter!" and this is the other down side for most of Norway- it is hard to strike up a friendly conversation with a stranger in a bar or cafe, and often hard at the school / sports / barnehage events it can be a bit frustrating. I once turned up in a kilt at an Oslo barnehage coffee party and not one person bothered to comment on me being Scottish or struck up a conversation.
More on this: you will find that Norwegians like Jews, are exclusive- they are not evangelical about themselves, their country, their opinions like many more extravert national temperaments are. They will quickly form little social circles at these social parents gatherings based on old school alliances or some connection, and then physically fill an area or a table and exclude other people. They do this to their own!
In Oslo and the other big cities, it is worth just trying to break in with a firm introduction and a smile. I am very much a once-bitten, twice-shy person on this but I shouldn't be really. I am the type of person who visually some people take an instant dislike to, and I cannot get along with very domineering personalities, or on the other end of the scale, shy types who cannot make or carry on conversation.
However I recommend sticking your neck in when you live in a big city, and just seeing how it goes- who takes up on you. Apply this to all social circles you come into, even family, and then if you find a circle is very closed then think about exiting stage left and working on just one or two individuals slowly to come in.
Summary:
It is very frustrating for many of us in this stage of life, to move in your late twenties to early forties to Norway because it is not a very sociable country on average. Patience then, and a huge dose of humility are your greatest tools, plus having sensitive, tuned social antenna to pick up on the queues- the buying signals and the flow of the conversation into an acquaintancy and then into a new friendship.
Find people who do not block you socially - they may be a lot more shy than you are used to, and don't seek to convert enemies! In Oslo you will come upon a lot of outright snobs in any middle class area, who are often pretty right wing and anti immigration entirely!
Join clubs and try to find the pace of conversation and ask pertinent questions or make nice observations. Make these, wait for a response- qualifying things is bad because it takes Norwegians a while to think- hey an immigrant is talking, did we understand them right, should we be friendly to them or skeptical?
Most of all grasp invitations while not building up your own expectations. I would recommend keeping the conversation objective on common ground rather than presenting your own personal dilemas and political view on the world, but you know yourself best.
Remember once you have a good friend, or a family you mesh with, nurture things and be a little imaginative with your counter invitations. Don't overload them though, keep it a couple of times a month.
This all sounds like bending your outgoing personality to fit into a bloody convent, but in fact the new positive friends and acquaintances could be pleasantly surprised by an open door policy, or a couple of invitations per month or chances to do other things together as a family or sports training etc for the spouses.
You have to take a balanced view: you , like me are probably an ex-pat and statistics would say that you moved to Norway due to your better half and started a family.
So here you have to take that big change in life, parenthood, against emigration.
On the other side though, Norway is a bet special- Norwegians are good, polite hosts but they are not on average at all out going and sociable to strangers. If you can imagine moving to Fife, Aberdeenshire or some English county where people are inverted snobs, xenophobes and well-to-do snobs then that is the kind of atmosphere.
As I blogged before, Norway has never been big on immigrants: they had no empire and they were more used to sending their people out to the USA or to sea. So they just aren't used to it, and have all these displaced peoples, generally Muslim to cope with, which when young Somali males are in the picture, are viewed with more than a pinch of skepticism and outright "send them back".
However let us not play the racist card for you and I from developed countries with a native spouse. Here we fall into that which many Norwegians encounter- big city anonymity and non chalence, and small town clanism. If you throw into that the quite healthy extended family orientation of most people here, then you start to see that social lives plus the old 2.4, have fallen into ever-decreasing-circles for the natives.
On the other hand to come back into the imbalance that you can feel about your new social life and lack of it, then as an immigrant you have a few more barriers: you have the language and it subtleties and the different forms of conversation.
Generally I find conversations to be pretty banal round my kids parents and I feel antipathy from several other parents towards me and partly my whole family unfortunately. I just can't get into the rythm of them down here because I don't get the point: I understand the words, but I dont get the tone and the whole point. To be frank I was never any good at small talk and prefer waffeling on and debating bigger topics or interesting stuff, which outside hobbies, have fallen away.
So when you are approaching those parent gatherings or any social event, your new ways into a social life may well be people who are a lot more shy than you are used to, but at least they are not little snobs who can be quite intent and even a little aggressive at blocking you as an immigrant out of the social circle. You are looking to glide in very slowly often or grasp the chance when you meet someone nice and welcoming.
How do you address all this and build a social life?
Well you have to target your energies - decide who in the family and parents - circle at school / barnehage you like and have something in common with, or just feel comfortable with their conversation. Don't rush things, but don't refuse invitations ever!
Your other source of new friends will be through hobbies: your own and your children's. This is my source of chums and chat. Even there it is a little strained.
Take up new hobbies or join clubs which your previous individual efforts fit into, like photography.
Hobby clubs have a kind of commonality of objective conversation which has its own natural ice breakers and ways to get into the chat circle. Clubs and especially hobby clubs are very collective in nature here, they often talk of "we" and there is a natural belonging if you share interests. Sports clubs and activities are also good, golf and 5-a-side being two big in-ways for 30 something males at least. I have a personal reference from the helm of a 8 man boat I raced on, who says I came in very comfortably and was not flashy despite my longer experience.
It is important not to be flashy. Also one sport in particular is problematic- male football. Our local team had a first to third level team. A couple of outsiders, one half english, the other from the next district, played in what they presumed was the main team as there were always enough at training to have at least five a side and turn out a full team if they needed to. These two guys were pretty good at football- and they saw a group of about 5 or 6 players training together with the best coach and asked who they were? Oh, they are the first team. The next time they turned up they asked the firsts coach if they could come up to the team, to which the blunt reply from a trainer with 6 to 8 players was, "No, the team is full". That my friends is typical small town Norway! It may have taken them years to get invited to train a little and sit on the bench for the first team, who then drew on their favoured mates in the second to make up the first 11.
It is all a very painful boring catch a monkey with some people and some social circles you then come into: the best advice is that Norwegians do not like expectations (apart from North Norway folk who are virtually in another universe and often super sociable and welcoming) - the usual expectations you may have from North America or the EU in general must be forgotten- do not expect dinner party invitations and trips to their cabins as an opening gambit with the vast majority. Expect to take some time to come even into the circle of conversation!
The very big plus side is that it is very true that once you make a friend in Norway, you make a very good friend - mi casa, su casa. Then it can be a bit too much and difficult to reciprocate! Cabins, boats, hunting.....
This is though a culture clash to some extent: I think average UK, US, Canada, Antipodean, French, Dutch, Spanish and Italiens are far more used to having a wider circle of friends, and having a more fluent relationship to new acquaintances and how new friendships develop and old fall away. Also for better or for worst, our circle of friends have become more important than our extended family and we spend more time with them outside work than we do with our parents.
As a Londoner said to me he misses "the banter...they have no banter!" and this is the other down side for most of Norway- it is hard to strike up a friendly conversation with a stranger in a bar or cafe, and often hard at the school / sports / barnehage events it can be a bit frustrating. I once turned up in a kilt at an Oslo barnehage coffee party and not one person bothered to comment on me being Scottish or struck up a conversation.
More on this: you will find that Norwegians like Jews, are exclusive- they are not evangelical about themselves, their country, their opinions like many more extravert national temperaments are. They will quickly form little social circles at these social parents gatherings based on old school alliances or some connection, and then physically fill an area or a table and exclude other people. They do this to their own!
In Oslo and the other big cities, it is worth just trying to break in with a firm introduction and a smile. I am very much a once-bitten, twice-shy person on this but I shouldn't be really. I am the type of person who visually some people take an instant dislike to, and I cannot get along with very domineering personalities, or on the other end of the scale, shy types who cannot make or carry on conversation.
However I recommend sticking your neck in when you live in a big city, and just seeing how it goes- who takes up on you. Apply this to all social circles you come into, even family, and then if you find a circle is very closed then think about exiting stage left and working on just one or two individuals slowly to come in.
Summary:
It is very frustrating for many of us in this stage of life, to move in your late twenties to early forties to Norway because it is not a very sociable country on average. Patience then, and a huge dose of humility are your greatest tools, plus having sensitive, tuned social antenna to pick up on the queues- the buying signals and the flow of the conversation into an acquaintancy and then into a new friendship.
Find people who do not block you socially - they may be a lot more shy than you are used to, and don't seek to convert enemies! In Oslo you will come upon a lot of outright snobs in any middle class area, who are often pretty right wing and anti immigration entirely!
Join clubs and try to find the pace of conversation and ask pertinent questions or make nice observations. Make these, wait for a response- qualifying things is bad because it takes Norwegians a while to think- hey an immigrant is talking, did we understand them right, should we be friendly to them or skeptical?
Most of all grasp invitations while not building up your own expectations. I would recommend keeping the conversation objective on common ground rather than presenting your own personal dilemas and political view on the world, but you know yourself best.
Remember once you have a good friend, or a family you mesh with, nurture things and be a little imaginative with your counter invitations. Don't overload them though, keep it a couple of times a month.
This all sounds like bending your outgoing personality to fit into a bloody convent, but in fact the new positive friends and acquaintances could be pleasantly surprised by an open door policy, or a couple of invitations per month or chances to do other things together as a family or sports training etc for the spouses.
mandag 30. september 2013
Getting Into the Larger Companies in Norway as an Immigrant
I am just ending a contact at a medium sized company and am in the process of interviews and so on to get into hopefull a larger company.
As a foreigner the large employers usually offer most international opportunities where your native language could be of use, especially English, or if you are otherwise very proficient in English this is a large plus point. However these large employers seem to present barriers by their size and beaurocratic registration and application processes.
Norway is quite peculiar in the EU for having a few huge employers and then having many small companies- a kind of biploar national spread of companies. On the one hand you have of course then Statoil (including Hyrdo's oil production), Aker, El Chem and of course the NHS and otherwise the state here. Under this is a layer of fast growing companies, like National Oil Well-Varco (NOV), who established in Norway to supply these large drilling and production firms with equipment and services and have been able to grow internationally as Norwegian entities, based on advanced engineering that by in large, the Texans couldn't be bothered investing in before.
On the otherside of the coin are a myriad of small companies, biased by one-man-bands who often take early pension and then hire themselves into the self same very large employers at a high hourly rate. Outside retail there are very few medium sized businesses, but they are there to be found and the best source is the Gazelle listings for your local area. ( gaseller as norsk key word).
SME's Versus Larger Employees
Working for sub 20 employee companies has its' charms in terms of team and family feel, or the reverse in being established and possibly sceptical on average to immigration. You are most of all though at the mercy of the owner-director and often foriegners are seen as a resource to be exploited in terms of overtime, holiday allocation, scope of tasks and most of all, economic expendability. I have worked in small companies below 20-30 employees and I do not personally recommend planning your career around them, unless you see a very good fit where your skills are worth more to them than their company are to you.
Large employers on the other hand, offer larger opportunities to you as a foreigner, in terms of getting a foot in the door for other jobs, promotion, training and financial or project responsibility. Norwegians know this only too well, and many graduates will only apply to the top handful of companies in their skill area.
Applying to the Mega Companies In Norway
How do you then apply to these megalyths ? They seem to be very impersonal. They often advertise in English, but then at some point the communication goes over to Norwegian- have you made a mistake?
Firstly there is a very big difference between being an experienced international project manager, a qualified engineer, a global sales person, or a hot IT worker and being a general administration worker or at first job trainee level. In the latter, the daily language will have to be Norwegian and that means written and oral.
For non technical jobs, my advice is to always apply in Norwegian unless it states expressly that you should apply in English. Further to this get your CV and letter checked by a native speaker, and also get some practice in interview conversation and follow up communications.
Getting in the door though even with good Norwegian seems an issue, a great big brick wall infront of you: My advice is to not think of these companies as huge megalyths, but see the people: you are being recruited most often to a specific team which works pretty much like an SME. As a foreigner it always makes the difference if you contact the person named in the advert. If they are personnel it is best to be positive and speak generally about your intereset, breifly about your suitability and then ask if it is possible to speak to the manager for the position. This shows positivity and it is the way Norwegians often make open applications or network their way to jobs. You have to practice at this or be very comfortable with your language.
I would say that in general e-mail communications outside the actual application are interpreted negatively: that is just my opinion based on my experiences. It can though be worth using e-mail to request a telephone conversation.
This approach, using the phone, has secured me nearly all my jobs here and was completely necessary.Why? Because they want to work with people who can speak Norwegian in those positions! Also it shows interest and motivation, and actually very few people bother to phone up at all. I have also been down to the last few at 2nd interview level, at both Statoil and Aker for positions with more than 60 applicants.
Another thing is to keep on applying and apply for related positions in these larger employers. As long as you are qualified a and /or experienced for the positions, apply and keep on applying. My application for three or four positions at one company actually lead to me getting the best possible one!
Open applications are worth while but only in the right context: you need to use networking to establish who may be a manager to talk to. "On File" as an immigrant outside engineering and IT, means in the bin in my opinion. You need to make a targetted approach, kind of a courting and sniffing out if they are recruiting in your area. The key here is to define need, and strike before they contact the recruitment companies or advertise the job.
Bemanning and Rectuitment Companies as A Route In
One way into large companies is through rectuiters and bemanners. Beware though, because large companies often want to have a percentage of temp staff who can be cut back given a bad quarterly result. Companies I have worked in recently had a policy of having 10-20% of their pay roll hired in. The new laws make it harder to avoid permanency, but they dont care especially with immigrants. You can like a freind of mine who was very competent in document control, be locked in actually to being a temp, by the mutual interest of personnel dept and bemanner with monthly fee, and held out from the permanent position whereas they actually recruit a poorer candidate! Here she was in a position of stregnth and should have moved to direct, but actually she sought a new education which she got a place in suddenly in the summer.
How do you address the bemanning situation? Well it is a win-win if you get training and experience which makes you more attractive in the job market or internally a valuable resource. You may be a temp for someone with quite a lot of responsibility or be able to develope the role and get recognised in the company and therefore rectuited. There are positive here if you also are still learning the language and need to use it daily in the workplace, or are just trying to get a first foothold into semi skilled work.
However to continue at your own level or go down, I would try and turn a bemmaning opportunity into a direct hire with a recruitment consultancy fee. Another way is to avoid the middle man altogether, identifying the employer from a short conversation with the recruiter, and contacting them directly with an "open" application as a pure coincidence.
Your Local Job Market
I still haven't been able to crack my local job market, large or small. I even did a work-fair / work-experience for 9 months to get in to the right type of job in a local company, which did me a world of good, but in fact this is a typical issue for government funding - it should have been a temporary position! If I had not come with a state cheque book they would have hired me. I then am faced with a nasty winter commute of often over an hour when it is snowing on twisty roads, in fact the worst section of the trunk road in this region!
'
What i do hear works with SMEs in your local market is shoe leather: turning up at the door with your CV is seen as a very positive thing and quite often you will be in a conversation with the manager in a position to employ you.
Be Dynamic? Speaking to your Hosts....
These type of dynamic go getter job skills are necessary to get employed, this may seem a bit unfortunate for the shy type. On the other hand, the shy type may get a kinder reception at a company and be right for the position in the long term, you never know!
I see what ever that language skills are often a must, yet you should resort to English if you are strong in that when you are out of your water, always. One issue I have is that I have polished my CV and application letters and take the application process with a lot of fore thought and concentration, and in fact my Norsk language on a day to day basis is not as good as it is under the recruitment phase.
Modesty in norway is a good thing an part of the culture, to a frustrating extent, but know that you will quite likely never be even 90% as comprehendable as a norwegian and also that some are a little strange and "fall off" in conversations when the grammar wains. You have to be aware of this, This is a bad habit I find here anyway between norwegians- in presentations and talks I think I often have a bigger take out that the average norwegian because I am so focused on understanding!
As a foreigner the large employers usually offer most international opportunities where your native language could be of use, especially English, or if you are otherwise very proficient in English this is a large plus point. However these large employers seem to present barriers by their size and beaurocratic registration and application processes.
Norway is quite peculiar in the EU for having a few huge employers and then having many small companies- a kind of biploar national spread of companies. On the one hand you have of course then Statoil (including Hyrdo's oil production), Aker, El Chem and of course the NHS and otherwise the state here. Under this is a layer of fast growing companies, like National Oil Well-Varco (NOV), who established in Norway to supply these large drilling and production firms with equipment and services and have been able to grow internationally as Norwegian entities, based on advanced engineering that by in large, the Texans couldn't be bothered investing in before.
On the otherside of the coin are a myriad of small companies, biased by one-man-bands who often take early pension and then hire themselves into the self same very large employers at a high hourly rate. Outside retail there are very few medium sized businesses, but they are there to be found and the best source is the Gazelle listings for your local area. ( gaseller as norsk key word).
SME's Versus Larger Employees
Working for sub 20 employee companies has its' charms in terms of team and family feel, or the reverse in being established and possibly sceptical on average to immigration. You are most of all though at the mercy of the owner-director and often foriegners are seen as a resource to be exploited in terms of overtime, holiday allocation, scope of tasks and most of all, economic expendability. I have worked in small companies below 20-30 employees and I do not personally recommend planning your career around them, unless you see a very good fit where your skills are worth more to them than their company are to you.
Large employers on the other hand, offer larger opportunities to you as a foreigner, in terms of getting a foot in the door for other jobs, promotion, training and financial or project responsibility. Norwegians know this only too well, and many graduates will only apply to the top handful of companies in their skill area.
Applying to the Mega Companies In Norway
How do you then apply to these megalyths ? They seem to be very impersonal. They often advertise in English, but then at some point the communication goes over to Norwegian- have you made a mistake?
Firstly there is a very big difference between being an experienced international project manager, a qualified engineer, a global sales person, or a hot IT worker and being a general administration worker or at first job trainee level. In the latter, the daily language will have to be Norwegian and that means written and oral.
For non technical jobs, my advice is to always apply in Norwegian unless it states expressly that you should apply in English. Further to this get your CV and letter checked by a native speaker, and also get some practice in interview conversation and follow up communications.
Getting in the door though even with good Norwegian seems an issue, a great big brick wall infront of you: My advice is to not think of these companies as huge megalyths, but see the people: you are being recruited most often to a specific team which works pretty much like an SME. As a foreigner it always makes the difference if you contact the person named in the advert. If they are personnel it is best to be positive and speak generally about your intereset, breifly about your suitability and then ask if it is possible to speak to the manager for the position. This shows positivity and it is the way Norwegians often make open applications or network their way to jobs. You have to practice at this or be very comfortable with your language.
I would say that in general e-mail communications outside the actual application are interpreted negatively: that is just my opinion based on my experiences. It can though be worth using e-mail to request a telephone conversation.
This approach, using the phone, has secured me nearly all my jobs here and was completely necessary.Why? Because they want to work with people who can speak Norwegian in those positions! Also it shows interest and motivation, and actually very few people bother to phone up at all. I have also been down to the last few at 2nd interview level, at both Statoil and Aker for positions with more than 60 applicants.
Another thing is to keep on applying and apply for related positions in these larger employers. As long as you are qualified a and /or experienced for the positions, apply and keep on applying. My application for three or four positions at one company actually lead to me getting the best possible one!
Open applications are worth while but only in the right context: you need to use networking to establish who may be a manager to talk to. "On File" as an immigrant outside engineering and IT, means in the bin in my opinion. You need to make a targetted approach, kind of a courting and sniffing out if they are recruiting in your area. The key here is to define need, and strike before they contact the recruitment companies or advertise the job.
Bemanning and Rectuitment Companies as A Route In
One way into large companies is through rectuiters and bemanners. Beware though, because large companies often want to have a percentage of temp staff who can be cut back given a bad quarterly result. Companies I have worked in recently had a policy of having 10-20% of their pay roll hired in. The new laws make it harder to avoid permanency, but they dont care especially with immigrants. You can like a freind of mine who was very competent in document control, be locked in actually to being a temp, by the mutual interest of personnel dept and bemanner with monthly fee, and held out from the permanent position whereas they actually recruit a poorer candidate! Here she was in a position of stregnth and should have moved to direct, but actually she sought a new education which she got a place in suddenly in the summer.
How do you address the bemanning situation? Well it is a win-win if you get training and experience which makes you more attractive in the job market or internally a valuable resource. You may be a temp for someone with quite a lot of responsibility or be able to develope the role and get recognised in the company and therefore rectuited. There are positive here if you also are still learning the language and need to use it daily in the workplace, or are just trying to get a first foothold into semi skilled work.
However to continue at your own level or go down, I would try and turn a bemmaning opportunity into a direct hire with a recruitment consultancy fee. Another way is to avoid the middle man altogether, identifying the employer from a short conversation with the recruiter, and contacting them directly with an "open" application as a pure coincidence.
Your Local Job Market
I still haven't been able to crack my local job market, large or small. I even did a work-fair / work-experience for 9 months to get in to the right type of job in a local company, which did me a world of good, but in fact this is a typical issue for government funding - it should have been a temporary position! If I had not come with a state cheque book they would have hired me. I then am faced with a nasty winter commute of often over an hour when it is snowing on twisty roads, in fact the worst section of the trunk road in this region!
'
What i do hear works with SMEs in your local market is shoe leather: turning up at the door with your CV is seen as a very positive thing and quite often you will be in a conversation with the manager in a position to employ you.
Be Dynamic? Speaking to your Hosts....
These type of dynamic go getter job skills are necessary to get employed, this may seem a bit unfortunate for the shy type. On the other hand, the shy type may get a kinder reception at a company and be right for the position in the long term, you never know!
I see what ever that language skills are often a must, yet you should resort to English if you are strong in that when you are out of your water, always. One issue I have is that I have polished my CV and application letters and take the application process with a lot of fore thought and concentration, and in fact my Norsk language on a day to day basis is not as good as it is under the recruitment phase.
Modesty in norway is a good thing an part of the culture, to a frustrating extent, but know that you will quite likely never be even 90% as comprehendable as a norwegian and also that some are a little strange and "fall off" in conversations when the grammar wains. You have to be aware of this, This is a bad habit I find here anyway between norwegians- in presentations and talks I think I often have a bigger take out that the average norwegian because I am so focused on understanding!
torsdag 5. september 2013
British Perspective on Norwegian Election 2014 (Storting , Valget 2014)
Rather than going straight to the recycling bin with the election magazine from FrP (progress party, "far " right here in Norway) I decided to read it.
I have met quite a lot of Frp members here and they are a little split into two camps: small business bourgeois types and generally anyone who doesn't like taxes and tolls on roads as a way of financing an egalitarian society.
In Britain then they correspond to a far earlier epoch, the post war middle middle class who were fed up with rationing and high taxation. That is where the 'Grocer's Daughter' and her hand bag home economics came from, Magaret Thatcher, the witch whose policies allowed British industry to close down or move to China.
In the last election FrP had an aggressive agenda and both them and the conservative Høyre rattled sabres about working conditions being unsustainable and damaging business. Oil barell prives went up and we got guaranteed summer holiday of three weeks. The right were pandering to their pay masters in business and the population returned the red-greens with a sustained majority.
Now the blue side of the house have not just tamed their message, they have returned with a liberal and largely socialist agenda. Spend more money! Build infrastructure!
This is a bit of an ananthema for uk conservatives. We had almost twenty years of save and cut back, which was a bit illusionary because public spending shifted to infrastructure mostly in tory counties, metrics beaurocracy in the nhs and education and paying the dole for people trapped in industrial ghost towns.
The norsk labour party has rendered the old style blue rinse parties, with the strings pulled only by the bourgieos, unelectable because the economy can support the liberal labour laws. People here know there is no excuse for lower pay, short term contracts and the bosses determining your workng hours. There is little need to pander to businesses in the uk either but that is where the balance of power lies. Now enter new whiter than white blue parties with a personal liberalising message of road building, choice of school and legal jet ski driving.
They will face legal and interrnational resistance to forcing the oil fund, the state pension investment fund, into investing in road projects which will be motorist toll free. They will have resistance to privatisation in the nhs here. They will face large problems with free school choice and the general grading of primary school kids, mainly because the two a large new beaurocratic load and benefit only a minority while actually threatening average quality of schooling by being devisive, leading to dump schools and stigmatisation for pupils and teaching staff. With norwegians hate of commuting, it is only the few right wing parents who will choose this to begin
Now they open the door for a wider working class support as people percieve they have more money in their pockets and team leader and lower management start to be lured into the benefits for them of privatisation. So it really isnt the first blue governemnet anyone has to worry about, apart from the economists. It is the second possible term which would really make negative changes to the workers lot .
I have met quite a lot of Frp members here and they are a little split into two camps: small business bourgeois types and generally anyone who doesn't like taxes and tolls on roads as a way of financing an egalitarian society.
In Britain then they correspond to a far earlier epoch, the post war middle middle class who were fed up with rationing and high taxation. That is where the 'Grocer's Daughter' and her hand bag home economics came from, Magaret Thatcher, the witch whose policies allowed British industry to close down or move to China.
In the last election FrP had an aggressive agenda and both them and the conservative Høyre rattled sabres about working conditions being unsustainable and damaging business. Oil barell prives went up and we got guaranteed summer holiday of three weeks. The right were pandering to their pay masters in business and the population returned the red-greens with a sustained majority.
Now the blue side of the house have not just tamed their message, they have returned with a liberal and largely socialist agenda. Spend more money! Build infrastructure!
This is a bit of an ananthema for uk conservatives. We had almost twenty years of save and cut back, which was a bit illusionary because public spending shifted to infrastructure mostly in tory counties, metrics beaurocracy in the nhs and education and paying the dole for people trapped in industrial ghost towns.
The norsk labour party has rendered the old style blue rinse parties, with the strings pulled only by the bourgieos, unelectable because the economy can support the liberal labour laws. People here know there is no excuse for lower pay, short term contracts and the bosses determining your workng hours. There is little need to pander to businesses in the uk either but that is where the balance of power lies. Now enter new whiter than white blue parties with a personal liberalising message of road building, choice of school and legal jet ski driving.
They will face legal and interrnational resistance to forcing the oil fund, the state pension investment fund, into investing in road projects which will be motorist toll free. They will have resistance to privatisation in the nhs here. They will face large problems with free school choice and the general grading of primary school kids, mainly because the two a large new beaurocratic load and benefit only a minority while actually threatening average quality of schooling by being devisive, leading to dump schools and stigmatisation for pupils and teaching staff. With norwegians hate of commuting, it is only the few right wing parents who will choose this to begin
Now they open the door for a wider working class support as people percieve they have more money in their pockets and team leader and lower management start to be lured into the benefits for them of privatisation. So it really isnt the first blue governemnet anyone has to worry about, apart from the economists. It is the second possible term which would really make negative changes to the workers lot .
torsdag 29. august 2013
Norwegian General Election Looms but not in A Threatening Way
It is the Norwegian general election in a little over two weeks time, and I'd say that it is no thriller and most people are switching off the candidates debates.
One good thing is that the election is centered on the issues, and not really the failings of the current, two term regime. The issues are really only the things which government tickle now: roads, rail a little education, privatisation round the fringes of health care.
The fact is that the failed right wing government of the early naughties have left a worse legacy, of failed privatisations like the rail network maintenance, and in the after math of an ineffective government riddled with internal power struggle, the Labour movement left to accelerate road building and address infrastructure for schools and hospitals.
Now the labour lead, green-red government will leave a lasting legacy- people may want better roads and a little less tax, but they are not prepared to work harder for it. The main topics on the lips of the opposition are all about MORE public spending, an anathema for the right wing in most EU countries and particularly England. More on roads in particular, and more to pensioners. Less to immigrants and less to assylum seekers - these are the current scape goat and easy target given the state has a duty of provision for them, and the usual comparison is to the mimimum pensioner- but who dares actually pay for people who were largely economically inactive through much of their lives ?
While on pensions then , the state pension fund aka the Oil Fund is one of the best managed fund portfolios in the world, managed by state appointed economists incidentally who show the caution and objectivity clearing lacking in most derivative traders and fund managers in the period 2005 to 2008!
Labour here have a very conservative policy on the oil fund- and incidentally are legally constrained by national and international laws in how much can be spent on public projects. In effect it acts as a private bank in a PFI type of way. The more thatcherite Fremskritt party want to unlock this fund for infrastructural renewal, with the key being a dual carriage way from Oslo to Stavanger - a patchy set up so far. This of course with as few new toll stations as possible if not completely free. So basically a Keynsian policy but one in a country where road projects are by virtue of topology and labour costs, amongst the most expensive.
The right are not keen on rail or any talk of rail, and that is clearly because they made a pigs ear of privatisation. They monopolised the management and lost droves of skilled workers in the cut backs which followed. Subsequent funding has been squandered on an Oslo-centric management black hole of strategic analysis planning and project management without any budget to manage anything in particular. The company has soaked up hundreds of millions of euros into this money pit and into an artificial internal inflation as they compete for engineering skills with the oil industry and the continuing Oslo property boom.
Also road projects are a mess here: the E18 in particular- a garing gap right passed Oslos second (or third) Airport near Sandefjord, which is there due to quarrels amongst right wing ruled councils - the stretches south and west of this were way over budget and again, disjointed- the ones which came in on budget prove to have scimped on materials - road surface on the new route Grimstad to Kristiansand, and tunneling north of Sandefjord. Foriegn competitors have had their fingers burned off with the main contractor from Germany on the Grimstad west stretch going under due to penalties and outright law breaking from sub suppliers.
I sit an listen to Radio Scotland about the A9 ironically enough. The A9 is topologically not unlike the E39 K'sand to Stavanger. It has the much hated and quoted as dangerous, partial dual carriageway. It has slush and snow in the winter, and storms over the summits. It has a lot of crashes: mostly caused by excessive speed and dodgey overtaking. What it replaced, as with the E39 as it is today, was a horrendous string of mixed quality road. The costs of making it all dual carriageway are too big for anyone to swallow.
Swallow must some people: the Skye bridge was a thatcher scheme to connect Skye-the-Brand to the mainland in a successful PFI which was soon voted away and paid off from the government purse. Kristiansand - Stavanger will be hugely expensive and with the very low speed limits relative to the rest of Europe, save less than an hour for cars but maybe around an hour for lorries. It will be safer, but so would "A" road upgrading and safer crawler lanes which continue over summits with speed cameras strategically placed.
Having been on the road around "peak" times in the morning, afternoon and early evening I hardly think the E39 warrants dual carriageway status given the volume of traffic I saw. However someone will counter argue that with stats' no doubt, and of course K'sand, Adger and West Fold all have major oil equipment manufacturers, who are just begining to see the life-cycle servicing turn over coming in the door. This is highly profitable business and is time related so Norway can compete in terms of capacity and costs as we go beyond 2020.
The Green Red got stung on thinking big: the CO2 being pumped back into the depleted oil reservoirs was a failure of politics, and the visionary deep tunnel super fast train was also a waste of feasbility study cash. Investment in motor-rail between all the major cities? Well you can move your car, but not at the same time you do. Also freight has gone over to rail but the private rail companies are very pleased to be at 100% capactiy and don't want to or cannot invest in more rolling stock.
Anyways, road is the big thing in this election while in fact the big fight ahead will be privatisation of health services and the suprises that a likely double term right wing government could bring with them in terms of labour laws.
Whatever else happens, the new blue-blue government will vote for a big rise in MPs salaries, cut the tax for their super rich and bourgoise funders, and then also cut tax for ordinary middle income first standard deviation below average folk: and promptly take it back off them in allowing for private inflation in public provision like pre school, MIRAS, minimum payment for doctors etc.
I am for dual carriageway Oslo- Kristiansand and a mixed A class road on the E39 westwards from there
One good thing is that the election is centered on the issues, and not really the failings of the current, two term regime. The issues are really only the things which government tickle now: roads, rail a little education, privatisation round the fringes of health care.
The fact is that the failed right wing government of the early naughties have left a worse legacy, of failed privatisations like the rail network maintenance, and in the after math of an ineffective government riddled with internal power struggle, the Labour movement left to accelerate road building and address infrastructure for schools and hospitals.
Now the labour lead, green-red government will leave a lasting legacy- people may want better roads and a little less tax, but they are not prepared to work harder for it. The main topics on the lips of the opposition are all about MORE public spending, an anathema for the right wing in most EU countries and particularly England. More on roads in particular, and more to pensioners. Less to immigrants and less to assylum seekers - these are the current scape goat and easy target given the state has a duty of provision for them, and the usual comparison is to the mimimum pensioner- but who dares actually pay for people who were largely economically inactive through much of their lives ?
While on pensions then , the state pension fund aka the Oil Fund is one of the best managed fund portfolios in the world, managed by state appointed economists incidentally who show the caution and objectivity clearing lacking in most derivative traders and fund managers in the period 2005 to 2008!
Labour here have a very conservative policy on the oil fund- and incidentally are legally constrained by national and international laws in how much can be spent on public projects. In effect it acts as a private bank in a PFI type of way. The more thatcherite Fremskritt party want to unlock this fund for infrastructural renewal, with the key being a dual carriage way from Oslo to Stavanger - a patchy set up so far. This of course with as few new toll stations as possible if not completely free. So basically a Keynsian policy but one in a country where road projects are by virtue of topology and labour costs, amongst the most expensive.
The right are not keen on rail or any talk of rail, and that is clearly because they made a pigs ear of privatisation. They monopolised the management and lost droves of skilled workers in the cut backs which followed. Subsequent funding has been squandered on an Oslo-centric management black hole of strategic analysis planning and project management without any budget to manage anything in particular. The company has soaked up hundreds of millions of euros into this money pit and into an artificial internal inflation as they compete for engineering skills with the oil industry and the continuing Oslo property boom.
Also road projects are a mess here: the E18 in particular- a garing gap right passed Oslos second (or third) Airport near Sandefjord, which is there due to quarrels amongst right wing ruled councils - the stretches south and west of this were way over budget and again, disjointed- the ones which came in on budget prove to have scimped on materials - road surface on the new route Grimstad to Kristiansand, and tunneling north of Sandefjord. Foriegn competitors have had their fingers burned off with the main contractor from Germany on the Grimstad west stretch going under due to penalties and outright law breaking from sub suppliers.
I sit an listen to Radio Scotland about the A9 ironically enough. The A9 is topologically not unlike the E39 K'sand to Stavanger. It has the much hated and quoted as dangerous, partial dual carriageway. It has slush and snow in the winter, and storms over the summits. It has a lot of crashes: mostly caused by excessive speed and dodgey overtaking. What it replaced, as with the E39 as it is today, was a horrendous string of mixed quality road. The costs of making it all dual carriageway are too big for anyone to swallow.
Swallow must some people: the Skye bridge was a thatcher scheme to connect Skye-the-Brand to the mainland in a successful PFI which was soon voted away and paid off from the government purse. Kristiansand - Stavanger will be hugely expensive and with the very low speed limits relative to the rest of Europe, save less than an hour for cars but maybe around an hour for lorries. It will be safer, but so would "A" road upgrading and safer crawler lanes which continue over summits with speed cameras strategically placed.
Having been on the road around "peak" times in the morning, afternoon and early evening I hardly think the E39 warrants dual carriageway status given the volume of traffic I saw. However someone will counter argue that with stats' no doubt, and of course K'sand, Adger and West Fold all have major oil equipment manufacturers, who are just begining to see the life-cycle servicing turn over coming in the door. This is highly profitable business and is time related so Norway can compete in terms of capacity and costs as we go beyond 2020.
The Green Red got stung on thinking big: the CO2 being pumped back into the depleted oil reservoirs was a failure of politics, and the visionary deep tunnel super fast train was also a waste of feasbility study cash. Investment in motor-rail between all the major cities? Well you can move your car, but not at the same time you do. Also freight has gone over to rail but the private rail companies are very pleased to be at 100% capactiy and don't want to or cannot invest in more rolling stock.
Anyways, road is the big thing in this election while in fact the big fight ahead will be privatisation of health services and the suprises that a likely double term right wing government could bring with them in terms of labour laws.
Whatever else happens, the new blue-blue government will vote for a big rise in MPs salaries, cut the tax for their super rich and bourgoise funders, and then also cut tax for ordinary middle income first standard deviation below average folk: and promptly take it back off them in allowing for private inflation in public provision like pre school, MIRAS, minimum payment for doctors etc.
I am for dual carriageway Oslo- Kristiansand and a mixed A class road on the E39 westwards from there
tirsdag 11. juni 2013
Norsk Labour Party Bows Out
The "red green" reign over Norway is bowing out this year almost without doubt. Like most two termers of any political shade, their custodial term picks up enough bugs along the way as to lead the public to want something else.
From another stand point however, the last 8 years have reversed some attitudes that poorer labour conditions are a necessary evil for us all to have jobs: the reverse is true, good labour conditions makes for higher standard of living, higher employment as people move up the socio-economic ladder with high average wages relative to house prices.
And there have been failures. The latest is the railway budget: they have indeed vastly increased the budget in the last 7 years, but 1.2 Bn NOK have been sucked up into central administration and planning. You can't avoid the fact though that it was the failed Bondevik government which privatised the maintenance sector, which then disastrously cut out quality, delivery end labour which they never won back.
Now however, the "jernbanverket" have become an Oslo parasite of project management and quality and safety strategy. Just like much of the centralised Oslo beaurocracies, private or public, the rest of Norway delivers while the parasitic pontificators in Oslo plan and strategise. All the place-men and women-who-lunch on their million krone a year (about the london equivalent of 90£K) to theorise and write reports and go to endless meetings, but never actually achieve very much.
Labour here also had a series of failed projects due to this Oslo theoretical "richest country on earth" approach. Firstly the gas plant at Mongstad: pumping CO2 back into the oil wells under pressure in sea water where it may become lime stone one day. However the R&D write off evapourated - they were very naive to think they could get away with this in the european electricity grid and global carbon-trading.
The next and most blatant fail for a "Green" government was the lunatic plan to have deep underground 300km/h trains between the major southern half cities. SO while the railway around Oslo resembles something by in large from 1973 on many commuter routes, and even longer back in time as you trundle down to the towns either side of the "oslo fjord", they aimed high, and came crashing back to earth twice - first when the tunneling costs and geological survey costs showed themselves to be many time higher than "guestimates" in the national plan
Crazy idea, more crazy than the "ferry free" journey with four lanes to Stavanger. Okay it makes things faster but there just isn't the volume of traffic North of Bergen for bridges over the finer fjords there, and between Kristiansand and Stavanger the population is sparse, and a lot of freight goes straight to international shipping or supply vessels from both harbours.
However, that said the FRP (semi thatcherite, populist "progress" party) they do have a good point, in linking many communities closer together, reducing delivery times, opening up labour markets, expanding the commuter zones and boosting rural and small town property markets. They could probably achieve as much by decentralising Oslo beaurocracy and encouraging major companies to open regional head quarters in mid and north norway as the oil exploration moves north.
It is ironic then that the slowest and most ridiculous gap in Norway's limited Motorway network is passed a site well known to visitors by air, Torp Sandefjord airport. Some miles north, the motorway abruptly becomes a rather silly extra wide A road with lots of yokal traffic including the odd tractor. Then a while later, hey presto, the new section past Sandefjord to Larvik and another new section west of there opens before localy political arguements were a memory and turf wad broken north and south of Torp to make for joined up writing, All held up by arguements between right wing local councils and the state road directorate. Finally there will be four lanes from Oslo to Larvik within the next year or so.
Back to Labour's failures here: the Utøya massacre has I think managed to go full circle and reflect badly on the labour movement: the core support is with working class and middle class public sector service employees. Labour now looks like a shambles of minority pandering: immigrants and homosexuals.
Finally we come to the root of both Norwegian Socialist attitudes and also a good deal of enterprise here. People are now a bit fed up that the rich get a fair bit more than they can : "you are getting something I am not" is the root of popular vote for the red-greens here. However that has run its course with most people actually not wanting to go down to a 35 hour week, or have any more holiday! Just this last week the policy of national intervention on development in the "beach zone", somethign I by in large agree with, has revealed the truth behind the apparent egalitarianism in Norway: now you have to be pretty rich to afford a plot or to redevelope a prime site, or to pay a lawyer to get you out of the "Owner-occupier-convenant" (I am such a fan of as a Scot from the west, where white settlers and holiday home buyers are a plague driving depopulation and demands on the local health services when the old buggers retire without a family within 500 miles!) Two of my pals have been grumbling about access to buy plots: they have had it good and want a piece of the beach: the trouble is of course, that in south-land Norway there are a million locals and then there a couple million more who may look over the fence if plot prices were within second mortgage reach.
The beach, even privately owned, outwith 50 m of a house or established dock is actually free for access to all, so privatising the beach will of course lead to MORE exclusivity and the usual market of speculators and quick-buckers who will drive up prices.
However, the government has held back for a decade effectively, rampant development along the desirable stretches, and it will probably be replaced by some form of planning application and possibly actually more restrictions and awareness on the most accessible areas.
Failure however has to be measured against the quiet legacies of governments. The green reds have as I said, extended the belief that everyone should share and that labour conditions should improve over time, even if that is slowly. They teach us that you can have a successful economy based on not just national resources but global economic investment and ROI with Statoil and Hydro and the shipping lines, Aker Solutions, Ullsteinvik and so on being world leaders. You can have a socialist -capatilist paradise, it comes with some side effects, but many other countries HAVE as much wealth and economic activity per capita, it is just they do not believe in distribution of wealth: rather the rat-race and the american fake dream.
The leftist governance of the last 7 years or so, leaves another strong part of this legacy, much as the Thatcher years change the centre of gravity in English politics inextricably, so has the "wet" conservative governments before and the strong labour movement moved the ball into their side of the field. Now the population want to play with the ball in the right side of the field, and wo-betied them because new labour laws on longer hours and less pay are waiting in the wings, dressed up as "Postive privatisation" - privatise the management classes in Oslo first is my response.
However the greatest achievement in last seven or eight years for Jens Stoltenberg is to have made the conservative party "Høyere" into a pussified centre right party, mostly to the left of the UK and German leftist parties who have been dragged into the right side of the pitch by this centre of gravity effect. A cautious, boring Erna Solberg will reign for one or two terms and continue building the roads Jens started and generally not interfere with labour laws very much and rather concentrate on giving people a feeling of freedom, and probably making some parts of the health service more effective by privatisation, and maybe sorting out the rail maitenance structure maybe just maybe and all in a shade of political pink which Jens will be proud off.
From another stand point however, the last 8 years have reversed some attitudes that poorer labour conditions are a necessary evil for us all to have jobs: the reverse is true, good labour conditions makes for higher standard of living, higher employment as people move up the socio-economic ladder with high average wages relative to house prices.
And there have been failures. The latest is the railway budget: they have indeed vastly increased the budget in the last 7 years, but 1.2 Bn NOK have been sucked up into central administration and planning. You can't avoid the fact though that it was the failed Bondevik government which privatised the maintenance sector, which then disastrously cut out quality, delivery end labour which they never won back.
Now however, the "jernbanverket" have become an Oslo parasite of project management and quality and safety strategy. Just like much of the centralised Oslo beaurocracies, private or public, the rest of Norway delivers while the parasitic pontificators in Oslo plan and strategise. All the place-men and women-who-lunch on their million krone a year (about the london equivalent of 90£K) to theorise and write reports and go to endless meetings, but never actually achieve very much.
Labour here also had a series of failed projects due to this Oslo theoretical "richest country on earth" approach. Firstly the gas plant at Mongstad: pumping CO2 back into the oil wells under pressure in sea water where it may become lime stone one day. However the R&D write off evapourated - they were very naive to think they could get away with this in the european electricity grid and global carbon-trading.
The next and most blatant fail for a "Green" government was the lunatic plan to have deep underground 300km/h trains between the major southern half cities. SO while the railway around Oslo resembles something by in large from 1973 on many commuter routes, and even longer back in time as you trundle down to the towns either side of the "oslo fjord", they aimed high, and came crashing back to earth twice - first when the tunneling costs and geological survey costs showed themselves to be many time higher than "guestimates" in the national plan
Crazy idea, more crazy than the "ferry free" journey with four lanes to Stavanger. Okay it makes things faster but there just isn't the volume of traffic North of Bergen for bridges over the finer fjords there, and between Kristiansand and Stavanger the population is sparse, and a lot of freight goes straight to international shipping or supply vessels from both harbours.
However, that said the FRP (semi thatcherite, populist "progress" party) they do have a good point, in linking many communities closer together, reducing delivery times, opening up labour markets, expanding the commuter zones and boosting rural and small town property markets. They could probably achieve as much by decentralising Oslo beaurocracy and encouraging major companies to open regional head quarters in mid and north norway as the oil exploration moves north.
It is ironic then that the slowest and most ridiculous gap in Norway's limited Motorway network is passed a site well known to visitors by air, Torp Sandefjord airport. Some miles north, the motorway abruptly becomes a rather silly extra wide A road with lots of yokal traffic including the odd tractor. Then a while later, hey presto, the new section past Sandefjord to Larvik and another new section west of there opens before localy political arguements were a memory and turf wad broken north and south of Torp to make for joined up writing, All held up by arguements between right wing local councils and the state road directorate. Finally there will be four lanes from Oslo to Larvik within the next year or so.
Back to Labour's failures here: the Utøya massacre has I think managed to go full circle and reflect badly on the labour movement: the core support is with working class and middle class public sector service employees. Labour now looks like a shambles of minority pandering: immigrants and homosexuals.
Finally we come to the root of both Norwegian Socialist attitudes and also a good deal of enterprise here. People are now a bit fed up that the rich get a fair bit more than they can : "you are getting something I am not" is the root of popular vote for the red-greens here. However that has run its course with most people actually not wanting to go down to a 35 hour week, or have any more holiday! Just this last week the policy of national intervention on development in the "beach zone", somethign I by in large agree with, has revealed the truth behind the apparent egalitarianism in Norway: now you have to be pretty rich to afford a plot or to redevelope a prime site, or to pay a lawyer to get you out of the "Owner-occupier-convenant" (I am such a fan of as a Scot from the west, where white settlers and holiday home buyers are a plague driving depopulation and demands on the local health services when the old buggers retire without a family within 500 miles!) Two of my pals have been grumbling about access to buy plots: they have had it good and want a piece of the beach: the trouble is of course, that in south-land Norway there are a million locals and then there a couple million more who may look over the fence if plot prices were within second mortgage reach.
The beach, even privately owned, outwith 50 m of a house or established dock is actually free for access to all, so privatising the beach will of course lead to MORE exclusivity and the usual market of speculators and quick-buckers who will drive up prices.
However, the government has held back for a decade effectively, rampant development along the desirable stretches, and it will probably be replaced by some form of planning application and possibly actually more restrictions and awareness on the most accessible areas.
Failure however has to be measured against the quiet legacies of governments. The green reds have as I said, extended the belief that everyone should share and that labour conditions should improve over time, even if that is slowly. They teach us that you can have a successful economy based on not just national resources but global economic investment and ROI with Statoil and Hydro and the shipping lines, Aker Solutions, Ullsteinvik and so on being world leaders. You can have a socialist -capatilist paradise, it comes with some side effects, but many other countries HAVE as much wealth and economic activity per capita, it is just they do not believe in distribution of wealth: rather the rat-race and the american fake dream.
The leftist governance of the last 7 years or so, leaves another strong part of this legacy, much as the Thatcher years change the centre of gravity in English politics inextricably, so has the "wet" conservative governments before and the strong labour movement moved the ball into their side of the field. Now the population want to play with the ball in the right side of the field, and wo-betied them because new labour laws on longer hours and less pay are waiting in the wings, dressed up as "Postive privatisation" - privatise the management classes in Oslo first is my response.
However the greatest achievement in last seven or eight years for Jens Stoltenberg is to have made the conservative party "Høyere" into a pussified centre right party, mostly to the left of the UK and German leftist parties who have been dragged into the right side of the pitch by this centre of gravity effect. A cautious, boring Erna Solberg will reign for one or two terms and continue building the roads Jens started and generally not interfere with labour laws very much and rather concentrate on giving people a feeling of freedom, and probably making some parts of the health service more effective by privatisation, and maybe sorting out the rail maitenance structure maybe just maybe and all in a shade of political pink which Jens will be proud off.
onsdag 8. mai 2013
The Awkward New Job For Wanderers-In..
I have likened Norway's people to a tropical reef where the colourful masses swim around in a veritable paradis, while the sharks hover actually overhead.
The sharks are bosses and companies with sharp practices, and politicians who want ever more money from middle earners to the state.
Once you land a decent job offer, you should then look out for the sharks. I fully recommend a stepping stone job, but get a permanent one otherwise you will be kind of back to square one in terms of negotiating pay and responsibilities. It makes more than sense here to look a gift horse in the mouth from the priviledged position of a safe job because the other side of the 3 months notice is that a lot of monkeys can queu up to be thrown off the backs of your prospective colleagues.
Two things you have to swallow are then probably being a bit over qualified for the work you are given and also having some monkeys-off-the-back. In my case of late I really had to jump in because of the pay and the location...and sod them if they want me to do mindless admin on a manager's salary! However here comes the next thing to swallow:
A lesson which can apply to the UK, depending on the situation: in your first six months expect to have those monkeys to carry! And get on with it: bear them out the office of the boss and then beat them up and get on top of the bastards! However don't let your position be one big pile of monkeys!
This is where you want to "pirk" ie nit-pick when a job offer comes or you know you are in poll position: it is seen as constructive actually as long as you can be careful about how much of a job-snob you are on doing some tasks. I didn't do this and really I am now having to swallow more than I care to and start pushing back on the wrong end of my trial period!
There are also other issues like holidays and dont forget holiday pay: companies do not pay you in June, it is your last years holiday pay which is free-d up from where-ever you earned that.
The thing to be upon is that you need to put your back into it and be positive and "Be the best damn garbage man" as Ali once said. Then you gain respect and those monkeys will soon be yours to cast off, or turn into a systemised success to shine infront of higher management.
The sharks are bosses and companies with sharp practices, and politicians who want ever more money from middle earners to the state.
Once you land a decent job offer, you should then look out for the sharks. I fully recommend a stepping stone job, but get a permanent one otherwise you will be kind of back to square one in terms of negotiating pay and responsibilities. It makes more than sense here to look a gift horse in the mouth from the priviledged position of a safe job because the other side of the 3 months notice is that a lot of monkeys can queu up to be thrown off the backs of your prospective colleagues.
Two things you have to swallow are then probably being a bit over qualified for the work you are given and also having some monkeys-off-the-back. In my case of late I really had to jump in because of the pay and the location...and sod them if they want me to do mindless admin on a manager's salary! However here comes the next thing to swallow:
A lesson which can apply to the UK, depending on the situation: in your first six months expect to have those monkeys to carry! And get on with it: bear them out the office of the boss and then beat them up and get on top of the bastards! However don't let your position be one big pile of monkeys!
This is where you want to "pirk" ie nit-pick when a job offer comes or you know you are in poll position: it is seen as constructive actually as long as you can be careful about how much of a job-snob you are on doing some tasks. I didn't do this and really I am now having to swallow more than I care to and start pushing back on the wrong end of my trial period!
There are also other issues like holidays and dont forget holiday pay: companies do not pay you in June, it is your last years holiday pay which is free-d up from where-ever you earned that.
The thing to be upon is that you need to put your back into it and be positive and "Be the best damn garbage man" as Ali once said. Then you gain respect and those monkeys will soon be yours to cast off, or turn into a systemised success to shine infront of higher management.
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