New York to Norway?

Hello,

I am considering moving to Norway in about a year, after my military obligation is up. I have looked through this forum and have seen the pro's and cons so I have an idea of the situation there.

My question though is what is the state of the metal working/ fabrication industry there? In New York, high end metal working is a fairly good paying gig, especially if one is ambitious. After searching on the Internet for quite a while in both English and Norwegian I haven't come across anything.

I contacted the Norwegian immigration department and Welding is eligible for their skilled trade work visa. So, I'm guessing that there is a lack of Welders/metal workers in the country? So my plan is to fly out for a week to meet people and try to get a job offer.

Any suggestions or constructive criticism is appreciated. I also don't have a particular city in mind, but I'm guessing Oslo would be the best bet.

Justin,

A) The minimum salary is at around 100 NOK an hour, or a bit more which is around 15 Euro an hour for any type of work minimum.

B) Oslo would be your best bet as you can have friends from the whole world - Pakistan, Vietnam, Sweden, Arab countries, African countries, Sri Lanka and other European countries etc. In addition , Oslo is not that large so if you come from a big city like yourself , you don't want to settle for anything smaller than Oslo. You will find Burger King, Starbucks etc in Oslo.

Having said this, then most people in Oslo are  Norwegian and so is the culture although it has got a lot more international over the years. You don't, however, get the beautiful fjords & mountains that you see in the tourist brochures - those attractions are in Western Norway - a couple of hours north of Bergen.

C) I don't know much about metals, but while Norway use to have many factories back in the 1970s, in fact they were short of labour so guest workers came to Norway to take these jobs, however now I think most of them have closed - Drammen was one such town known for its factories.
You should go to www.finn.no and look to see if there are any jobs in the metal industry, and you should remember that if you get admission it will also be free for you to study, and you can study at any age in Norway, and a couple of courses are even offered in English.

Thanks, in Norway is it acceptable to just show up and apply for a job?

Well I would recommend you apply for something online first due to the high living costs - you don't want to pay for rent in an apartment for 4 months if you can't find a job ...

Apart from that is the obvious about work visa etc , so make sure you got all of that sorted first.

Here are two good job sites;


http://www.finn.no/jobb/https://tjenester.nav.no/stillinger/forside

justin12345 wrote:

Thanks, in Norway is it acceptable to just show up and apply for a job?

Hi Kevinar,

Thank you for your precious help :)

But this thread is outdated "2013" here, please feel free to create a new one or to participate in the recent topic on Norway forum :)

Thank you

Stéphanie