According to Finns, the consulting firm Accenture is the top large company to work for in that country this year. Read the full story

At least nine out of every ten people to have lost their jobs in Iceland worked in the private sector. At the same time as the number of private sector jobs has decreased, the number of public sector jobs has actually gone up. Read the full story

(Press release): Actavis Group, the international generic pharmaceuticals company, today announced plans to expand its manufacturing site in Iceland, increasing capacity at the site by 50%. Fifty new jobs will be created as a result. Read the full story

Registered unemployment in Iceland in September amounted to 7.2 percent of the workforce, or an average of 12,242 people over the month. This represents a 9.3 percent (1,242 people )drop since August. At the same time in 2008, unemployment was at 1.3 percent, or 2,229 people. Read the full story

Like most airlines around the world, Finnair is struggling to find ways to cut costs as the number of global air travellers continues to slump. The Finnish national carrier is presently in talks with its employees over ways to save money, but the end result could leave up to 1,200 Finnair staff members out of a job. Read the full story

Long considered solidly rooted in Finland’s local economy, mobile phone giant Nokia has announced another round of job cuts that will affect some 1,700 of its employees across the globe. On 17 March these redundancies will take place, with Finland alone losing at least 700 jobs. Read the full story

People who have lost their jobs, or fear they might be fired, have shown huge interest in jobs abroad. Foreign companies see opportunities and want to send their emissaries to Iceland to look for staff. When the Directorate of Labour and its European counterpart EURES held their first meeting about jobs in Europe in 2006, only one person turned up. This weekend, a similar meeting is being held for the third time, but this time EURES advisor Valdimar Olafsson says he will be surprised if fewer than 2,000 turn up. Read the full story

Fewer people are searching for jobs now than at the same time last year and there remains a skills shortage in some industries in Iceland, according to Visir.is. The news website quotes the CEO of the Capacent research and public opinion bureau as saying it seems unlikely that unemployment figures will rise quickly over the coming months.

Despite regular news of businesses tightening their belts and making employees redundant, it seems many are still ready to hire new staff. The number of job advertisements in Monday’s Read the full story

Young Swedes are migrating to rich Norway in search of some quick cash, reports The New York Times.

As one of the richest countries in the world, Norway has attained a new status for a country that was once relatively poor by Scandinavian standards. Oslo’s low-income neighborhoods of Brugata and Storgata have recently become inhabited by Swedes in search of lucrative work and low-cost accommodation. This is seen as a reversal of situations, as Norwegians were heading to Sweden for work after the Second World War.

There are currently around 35,000 Swedes employed and living in Norway, nearly double the number in 1990. As Sweden went into recession in the early 1990s, Norway’s economy began to flourish in response to earlier oil discoveries in the North Sea. By 2006, Norway was the world’s third largest oil exporter.

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The need for foreign labour in Finland is being quickly filled by a growing number of foreigners seeking work-related resident permits.

By November this year, the Finnish Directorate of Immigration had received almost 14,000 applications from foreigners aiming to move to Finland and work there. The figure for last year was only 8,500 applications.

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