Among Norway’s workforce, foreign employees are often the most at risk. Knowing your rights is important for staying safe and a new AI chatbot has been launched to help you.
International residents in Norway should know about the Labour Inspection Authority (Arbeidstilsynet). This institution enforces labour rules and is the agency responsible for overseeing contracts, working hours, minimum wages, and workplace safety.
However, if you do not speak Norwegian, it can be challenging to navigate all these rules. This makes non-Norwegian speakers more vulnerable to exploitation or workplace problems.
To address this gap, Arbeidstilsynet has launched a new AI chatbot called “Leon”. The goal is to ensure that foreign workers can get quick, easy, and reliable answers about their rights without needing a translator, helping them solve issues before they get worse.
In a press release this week, Ingvill Kvernmo, Director of the Labour Inspection Authority, said that language barriers are often the main reason employess are at risk.
“Foreign workers are among the most vulnerable in the labour market. When you know neither the regulations nor the language, the risk of being exploited increases. Guidance in one’s own language is key to reaching this group,” Kvernmo said.
Advertisement
READ MORE: Five things you should know about salaries in Norway
The chatbot is available in Norwegian and eleven other languages commonly spoken by international workers: English, Bulgarian, Estonian, French, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, and Ukrainian.
This tool is more than just a translation service. It uses artificial intelligence to provide up-to-date, verified legal information from the official arbeidstilsynet.no database in the user’s chosen language.
Advertisement
This initiative is part of the government’s larger plan to fight social dumping and workplace crime. Minister of Labour and Social Inclusion, Kjersti Stenseng, attended the launch at the Service Centre for Foreign Workers in Trondheim. She pointed out that knowing your rights is the first step in protecting yourself from bad employers.
“Many foreign workers do not know the Norwegian rules and are therefore more easily exploited,” Stenseng said. “When they receive information in a language they understand, they can take care of their own rights, making it harder for unscrupulous actors to exploit them.”
The chatbot “Leon” is now live on the Arbeidstilsynet website.