What’s your opinion on this article, taking about how Norway is slowly going down, but also that sick days are at record number (28days , 6 times higher than european average)
I feel like since covid everything is going down/getting worse at a significantly higher rate than before with exception for earnings and value of CEOs, corporations, board members etc.
My Norwegian colleague with significantly fewer responsibilities took 15 days off from work and went offline as advised by his psychologists. He was burned out.
Meanwhile, others, with more responsibilities and key jobs (both Norwegians and immigrants) are asked to be ‘responsible adults’ during holidays and push harder towards the target.
There are indeed free loaders in society. Even with flexible work hours, work-from-home options, and generous holidays, they do misuse the system.
Perhaps their number is increasing.
28 days per year? People should eat better to boost their immune system.
While I agree to some extent on the parts in the quality of students and some people abusing the sick leaves, the article (and the mentioned book) seems to suggest that Norway should decrease the quality of life of their citizens. For example, saying the low skill employees earn to high to Norway be competitive internationally. Norway is rich in natural resources, so it can afford being “lazy”, why it should change that?
This was introduced in 1978 when Norway was investing in oil still and the revenues hadn’t kicked in. We were a medium rich society at the time. So this agreement with the worker unions has nothing to do with that we are too rich
I am not going to read an article from anyplace that doesn’t let me ‘reject all’ optional cookies, but makes me go through and turn off each one of 100+ companies.
Anyway, I don’t think there are any more freeloaders in Norway than other places, and I would far rather that people go off sick than either bring something contagious into the office, or come into work when they are burned out and take it out on others.
Everyone has a different capacity for work, and I actually think that we should go farther in recognising this.
I also think that articles like this tend to be very capitalist in their outlook. I think that Norway come closer to getting the balance right between work and other elements of life than most other countries.
I love working in Norway & I work with a fantastic group of people.
To some degree sick days correlate with high workforce participation.
If someone with marginal health in country A is on welfare and not working at all, while in country B they’re working — but their health is bad enough that measured over a decade they have 20% sick-leave, that’ll push up the sick-leave statistic of country B.
But it’s still true that in country B they’re working 80% of the time, while in country A they’re working 0% of the time — so what’s really preferable?
Especially the political right is guilty of this mistake: On the one hand they want more people to be in the workforce rather than on disability — I agree completely that this is a good goal! But at the same time, if some of these people start working, but remain in poor enough health that their sick-leave is more frequent than for the average employee, the very same right-wing politicians start talking about how we need to make cuts in sick-payments.
I couldn’t bother reading more than a few sentences before I felt like this was some moron who cares more about pointless numbers rather than having a life worth living.
My opinion is that everyone involved in the article can go fuck themselves.
So, it’s written by an Isreali journalist based in Berlin, and he has spoken to a single author who is out to promote his own book, and his own agenda. Hardly a comprehensive analysis of Norwegian economics.
With regards to the “record number of sick days”: Obviously, sick days will vary with the kinds of rules the government sets. But the number of sick days will also vary with a lot of other things. One major variable is the composition of the labor market. The way I understand it, a high degree of labor market participation is desired by Norwegian authorities. Allowing for generous sick day rules can be seen as a policy towards retaining as much of the labor force on the market as possible. My point is that there are a lot of variables which mean that you cannot take the 6x sick rate at face value.
A generous sick day rule is seen by many as an important policy towards social ineqality and poverty. And there’s another side to the coin: A lot of welfare goods in Norway are tightly tied to labor market participation.
My conclusion is that the article really is just another example of neoliberal propaganda. But then again, I’m a social democrat at heart.
I think they should be more supportive of entrepreneurs and small businesses. The government funds artist and writers but you don’t get much support or flexibility in taxes when trying to start a company. Also a lot of red tape and taxes has forced businesses to register outside the country. It’s not people being sick that I see as a problem. It’s outrages food costs and not supporting certain industries. Not long ago the government said they would stop giving student loans to pilots. There are businesses that train pilots that would be affected by these things. I don’t know if they followed through on this but it seems like a bunch of politicians sit and make decisions on things they have no idea about and instead of focusing on growth and innovation they focus on taxation adding extra red tape here or there and wanting to make people apply for every little thing. Also just about every single job needs a degree in this and that or some licence so people can’t just start any side hustle either without jumping through hoops. The wealthier ran away. So instead of encouraging people with money to invest and employ people they ended up moving to Switzerland. Just a little more thought behind the decision is needed. It’s not a bad thing yo have a welfare state but there needs to be a balance. If nobody invests in the country then there will be no income. We can’t rely on oil forever. Dubai ensured they had a back up plan and yes we do have an investment fund but will that be enough?
Norway is oil and gas. You won’t see something like ozempic or spotify coming out of it!
Am I sick that in 9 years of working in Norway, I have never taken a paid sick leave?
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I feel like since covid everything is going down/getting worse at a significantly higher rate than before with exception for earnings and value of CEOs, corporations, board members etc.
My Norwegian colleague with significantly fewer responsibilities took 15 days off from work and went offline as advised by his psychologists. He was burned out.
Meanwhile, others, with more responsibilities and key jobs (both Norwegians and immigrants) are asked to be ‘responsible adults’ during holidays and push harder towards the target.
There are indeed free loaders in society. Even with flexible work hours, work-from-home options, and generous holidays, they do misuse the system.
Perhaps their number is increasing.
28 days per year? People should eat better to boost their immune system.
While I agree to some extent on the parts in the quality of students and some people abusing the sick leaves, the article (and the mentioned book) seems to suggest that Norway should decrease the quality of life of their citizens. For example, saying the low skill employees earn to high to Norway be competitive internationally. Norway is rich in natural resources, so it can afford being “lazy”, why it should change that?
This was introduced in 1978 when Norway was investing in oil still and the revenues hadn’t kicked in. We were a medium rich society at the time. So this agreement with the worker unions has nothing to do with that we are too rich
I am not going to read an article from anyplace that doesn’t let me ‘reject all’ optional cookies, but makes me go through and turn off each one of 100+ companies.
Anyway, I don’t think there are any more freeloaders in Norway than other places, and I would far rather that people go off sick than either bring something contagious into the office, or come into work when they are burned out and take it out on others.
Everyone has a different capacity for work, and I actually think that we should go farther in recognising this.
I also think that articles like this tend to be very capitalist in their outlook. I think that Norway come closer to getting the balance right between work and other elements of life than most other countries.
I love working in Norway & I work with a fantastic group of people.
To some degree sick days correlate with high workforce participation.
If someone with marginal health in country A is on welfare and not working at all, while in country B they’re working — but their health is bad enough that measured over a decade they have 20% sick-leave, that’ll push up the sick-leave statistic of country B.
But it’s still true that in country B they’re working 80% of the time, while in country A they’re working 0% of the time — so what’s really preferable?
Especially the political right is guilty of this mistake: On the one hand they want more people to be in the workforce rather than on disability — I agree completely that this is a good goal! But at the same time, if some of these people start working, but remain in poor enough health that their sick-leave is more frequent than for the average employee, the very same right-wing politicians start talking about how we need to make cuts in sick-payments.
I couldn’t bother reading more than a few sentences before I felt like this was some moron who cares more about pointless numbers rather than having a life worth living.
My opinion is that everyone involved in the article can go fuck themselves.
So, it’s written by an Isreali journalist based in Berlin, and he has spoken to a single author who is out to promote his own book, and his own agenda. Hardly a comprehensive analysis of Norwegian economics.
With regards to the “record number of sick days”: Obviously, sick days will vary with the kinds of rules the government sets. But the number of sick days will also vary with a lot of other things. One major variable is the composition of the labor market. The way I understand it, a high degree of labor market participation is desired by Norwegian authorities. Allowing for generous sick day rules can be seen as a policy towards retaining as much of the labor force on the market as possible. My point is that there are a lot of variables which mean that you cannot take the 6x sick rate at face value.
A generous sick day rule is seen by many as an important policy towards social ineqality and poverty. And there’s another side to the coin: A lot of welfare goods in Norway are tightly tied to labor market participation.
My conclusion is that the article really is just another example of neoliberal propaganda. But then again, I’m a social democrat at heart.
I think they should be more supportive of entrepreneurs and small businesses. The government funds artist and writers but you don’t get much support or flexibility in taxes when trying to start a company. Also a lot of red tape and taxes has forced businesses to register outside the country. It’s not people being sick that I see as a problem. It’s outrages food costs and not supporting certain industries. Not long ago the government said they would stop giving student loans to pilots. There are businesses that train pilots that would be affected by these things. I don’t know if they followed through on this but it seems like a bunch of politicians sit and make decisions on things they have no idea about and instead of focusing on growth and innovation they focus on taxation adding extra red tape here or there and wanting to make people apply for every little thing. Also just about every single job needs a degree in this and that or some licence so people can’t just start any side hustle either without jumping through hoops. The wealthier ran away. So instead of encouraging people with money to invest and employ people they ended up moving to Switzerland. Just a little more thought behind the decision is needed. It’s not a bad thing yo have a welfare state but there needs to be a balance. If nobody invests in the country then there will be no income. We can’t rely on oil forever. Dubai ensured they had a back up plan and yes we do have an investment fund but will that be enough?
Norway is oil and gas. You won’t see something like ozempic or spotify coming out of it!
Am I sick that in 9 years of working in Norway, I have never taken a paid sick leave?
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