– We have vacancies almost all the time. And this year we want to add 20 pieces only locally here in Harstad, says Kristoffer Svendsen. He is plant and location manager for Aibel in Harstad, and is responsible for recruiting new employees. Harstad is a shipyard and supplier town 68 degrees north, midway between the northern Norwegian county capitals and the power centers Bodø and Tromsø. Here, the unemployment rate is roughly equal to zero, and many companies struggle to get hold of the skills they need. This is the case throughout Troms and Finnmark. Kristoffer Svendsen, plant and location manager for Aibel in Harstad with responsibility for recruiting new employees. Photo: Eirik Hind Sveen This means that Aibel struggles to get hold of people. The need is especially great now because the supplier earlier this year landed a multi-billion oil and gas contract at Equinor’s gas plant on Melkøya near Hammerfest. – Today, it is process engineers and engineers with a background in technical safety who are the most difficult to recruit, says Svendsen. He lacks more strength from the politicians to bring out and show that Northern Norway is attractive. Want more cooperation Høgre’s mayoral candidate in the municipal election in Harstad, Nina Dons-Hansen, believes more is needed for Harstad to be an attractive place to live and work. – I think much of the solution is that the municipality and the business community, zealots and those who have ambitions must work together even more. I don’t think Harstad municipality has been good enough up until now, says Dons-Hansen. Nina Dons-Hansen, mayoral candidate for Harstad Høgre. Photo: Eirik Hind Sveen Because in the scenes behind the empty rosters of the companies lurks a population ghost. But Mayor Kari-Anne Opsal from the Labor Party believes that the politicians are not to blame. – It is the same demographic development as in the whole of Western Europe. The district notices it before the centre. The North notices it before the South. What are we going to do with it; Shall we lay down and die? No, we can’t. We are forced to attract people and work smarter. Harstad is Northern Norway’s third largest urban municipality, with around 20,000 inhabitants. Photo: Veronica Turnage Opsal believes that small towns like Harstad are now in the same situation as small municipalities in Troms were 30 years ago. Therefore, the mayor believes that it is necessary to work very hard to get people to want to stay, and with people you are aiming for promising young people. Investing in young people Opsal says that the municipality has its own youth investment with measures to give young people a good upbringing, and create good bonds that make them want to come back. – Because we have jobs, and then something else is needed for them to come back again. It is no longer enough to have jobs, you are forced to offer something more, such as hometown and residence, she says. Mayor of Harstad, Kari-Anne Opsal. Photo: Eirik Hind Sveen Dons-Hansen agrees that efforts should be made to target the young Harstad residents. She believes memories of a good upbringing and schooling can make them stay – or move back. – When they eventually move out to take a job or travel around the world, they remember their backpack and think “I want to move back here”. Because precisely this with possibilities, a sense of a future, believes Kristoffer Svendsen at Aibel, is decisive for the Northern Norway of the future. – It is perhaps easier to make a choice to move back to the region when you know that the region has a future, he says.
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Need more strength from the politicians to show that Northern Norway is attractive – news Troms and Finnmark
