The cost of immigration in Norway amounts to billions

The Progress Party has ordered figures from the Norwegian statistical authority showing that people from non-Western countries, especially those dominated by Islam, cost Norway tens of billions of kronor annually. Seven out of ten social welfare kronor go to individuals with immigrant backgrounds.

The Progress Party has long sounded the alarm about the cost of high immigration, and the new figures provide further evidence for the party’s concerns. Unsurprisingly, the report shows that non-Western immigrants have significantly lower employment rates than Norwegian-born and Eastern European immigrants.

– They show that immigration to Norway costs us enormous sums. It’s an extreme amount of money, says Erlend Wiborg, immigration policy spokesperson for the Progress Party, to Nettavisen.

The calculation of employment rates is nuanced, and there is no single figure that provides the whole picture. However, the Progress Party believes that the figures from Statistics Norway paint an inaccurate picture – they show that over 60 percent of immigrants from Africa and Asia are employed. But here, a person is considered employed if they work one hour per week.

To find out how many are employed full-time, the party has had to commission a task from Statistics Norway.

The figures below show the results for immigrants from selected countries:

– When looking at the employment rate of Syrian women, it is alarmingly low. When nearly nine out of ten are not employed, we face a huge challenge, says Wiborg.

59 billion per year

The Progress Party has asked the Ministry of Finance how much society as a whole loses due to the employment gap – the answer is 58.8 billion Norwegian kroner per year.

Over the past ten years, 136,733 individuals have immigrated to Norway as family members, something the Progress Party wants to reduce.

Erlend Wiborg. Photo: Bård Gudim, FrPMedia, CC BY 3.0

Not solved in a generation

The figures show significantly better numbers for second-generation immigrants from non-Western countries aged 20-66. Here, there is only 1.7 billion Norwegian kroner to save by increasing employment.

When asked if this means the challenge is solved in a generation, Wiborg firmly answers no.

– No, it doesn’t. Because we still see that both the second and third generations have lower employment rates than the rest of the population. And then it affects other statistics related to crime and so on. So we have major challenges that unfortunately are not solved with each new generation.