A development network of 42 Norwegian municipalities gave refugees roughly 3 percentage points higher odds of getting a job – and up to 6 percentage points in the smallest municipalities. That is the finding of a new evaluation from NIBR at OsloMet, commissioned by KS and published on 15 June 2026.
The findings are good news if you are new to Norway: they show concretely what actually helps refugees into work, and which municipalities succeed best. Below we go through what the network is, what the numbers mean, and which measures you may recognise in your own municipality.
What is the "Refugees in work" network?
In spring 2024, KS (the Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities) invited every municipality in the country to a new development network called "Flyktninger i jobb" (Refugees in work). The goal was simple to state but hard to achieve: get more refugees into paid work faster, not just through qualification, but into an actual job.
42 municipalities – large and small, from across the country, including one district of Oslo – joined. In the network they shared experience, tested measures and learned from each other. The network is a collaboration between KS, NAV and IMDi (the Directorate of Integration and Diversity), all of which have a role in integration work.
This is part of a bigger picture. The foundation of integration is still the introduction programme, the full-time qualification track of up to two years that the municipality is obliged to offer newly settled refugees. The network is about how municipalities can get even better at connecting that track to working life.
What does the evaluation show?
NIBR (the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research at OsloMet) compared refugees in the participating municipalities with refugees in municipalities outside the network, over the period 2024/25 to 2025/26. The main findings:
- Around 3 percentage points higher probability of being in work in the network municipalities than elsewhere.
- Up to 6 percentage points higher effect in the smallest municipalities.
- The researchers describe it as "a significant connection between network participation and increased employment".
A couple of percentage points may sound small, but at the national level it amounts to many people moving from benefits to wages. For comparison, around 35 per cent of refugees settled since 2022 were in work in April 2025, up from 21 per cent the year before – so the field is moving, and small measures count.
Gunn Marit Helgesen, chair of KS, summed it up like this: the results show that strong cooperation between local actors is crucial for success. Sonja Skinnarland, service director at NAV, pointed to the same thing: when local actors commit resources and work together, more refugees find work.
What did the successful municipalities do?
There is no simple recipe, but the evaluation points to a broad toolbox. The municipalities that succeeded combined several measures at once:
- Work placements in businesses and the public sector
- Municipal jobs and employment in the municipality itself
- Cooperation with business and local employers
- Norwegian language training tied closely to the workplace
- Sector courses aimed at occupations that need people
- Mentoring schemes and job clubs
- Help with a driver's licence (decisive in many places outside the big cities)
- Entrepreneurship courses for those who want to start their own business
Some municipalities also used wage subsidies from NAV and considered exemptions from formal qualification requirements to get people into work faster.
A clear example is Skien, which hired more than 90 people on six-month contracts. The municipality financed this by combining integration funds, reallocated money from the social assistance budget and wage subsidies from NAV. The point was to give real work experience and a Norwegian reference on the CV – often the hardest hurdle to get over. You can read more about how Norwegian employers read applications in our guide to the Norwegian CV and job application.
Why the biggest effect in the smallest municipalities?
That the effect was twice as large in small municipalities is perhaps the most interesting finding. The explanation probably lies in proximity: in a small municipality, the caseworker at NAV, the refugee service and the local business owner often know each other personally. The path from "we need people" to "here is a candidate" is short.
In larger municipalities the systems are more fragmented, and a refugee can more easily become a case that travels between offices. The network gave the small municipalities a community to learn in – and they had the most to gain from systematising the informal cooperation they already had.
For you, weighing up where to live, this may be worth knowing: a smaller municipality can in practice give closer follow-up and a faster route to a job, even if the job market is smaller.
What does this mean for you as a refugee?
The findings are research, not new rights – but they say something concrete about what you can ask for and make use of:
- Ask for a work placement early. A placement is the most common bridge to a permanent job. Raise it with your adviser in the introduction programme.
- Use NAV actively. A wage subsidy makes you cheaper and less risky to hire for the employer. Read more about what you are entitled to in the overview of NAV for immigrants.
- Get your driver's licence if you can. In many municipalities it is a precondition for a job, not a luxury.
- Say yes to sector courses. Courses aimed at concrete occupations lead to work more often than general training.
This applies wherever you come from. Much of the rapid progress in recent years is down to Ukrainian refugees who have entered work; read more in our article on the road from temporary protection to work. Once you are in work, the same rules apply to you as to everyone else – see what you can expect in the overview of employee rights.
The road ahead: webinars in autumn 2026
KS, NAV and IMDi are now taking the findings further. In autumn 2026 they are holding a webinar series for municipalities that want to learn from those who have succeeded. The aim is to spread the measures that work to more municipalities, so that the small but real effect can reach more refugees across the whole country.
For you this means that more municipalities are likely to strengthen work-oriented follow-up in the time ahead. If you are in the introduction programme now, it is a good moment to be clear that your goal is a job – and to ask for the concrete measures that the research shows actually work.
As of 15 June 2026. The figures are taken from NIBR's evaluation commissioned by KS and reported by IMDi.
