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Burundi a few years earlier. I later learned that his story was typical for immigrants who wanted to settle down in Norway.
    He met with the immigration authorities and was made an offer something like this: “We pay you a living wage for a year while you spend full-time hours learning the Norwegian language and culture and taking job training to prepare you for a job for which there is a need here in Norway. We will locate you in a town or village, probably far from Oslo. You may be one of a very few Africans around, or even the only one. We will find a family that will put you up until you find your own place in the town.
    “If you miss your language lessons or other responsibilities, we will dock your pay for the missing time. If your teacher believes that you need more time to master the language, you’ll be eligible for an extension, while still being paid your wage. When your time is up, we will help you find a job that will use your new skills. After a certain time has elapsed you will be free to relocate anywhere in Norway.
    “Norway has a great interest in your becoming a productive, tax-paying citizen. This is the contract we offer: take it or leave it (which is to say: leave the country).”
    Michael was sent to a rural village among the western fjords. The only African anywhere near, he experienced the loneliest time of his life. He found the cultural differences enormous, but as his Norwegian improved he came to appreciate the life around him and began to make friends. When free to do so, he moved to Oslo, a significantly more diverse place. He feels he can now handle himself anywhere in the country and is pleased with that achievement, and he counts himself lucky to live in a country with so much freedom.
NORWEGIANS VALUE WORK
    The emphasis on work as a means of participation underlies the Norwegian immigration policy. Norway followed some other European countries in restricting its open immigration policy in the 1970s, but it has continued to accept people who need asylum and many who want to join their families who previously emigrated to Norway. 5
    In 2004, Norway opened its doors again—it was required to do so to participate in the European Economic Area treaty, which gives it access to European Union (EU) markets. That year, the EU admitted several new, job-hungry member countries from Eastern and Central Europe. Gradually, workers from those countries found their way to Norway, often to take jobs in construction, retail, restaurants, and hotels. By 2012, nearly all of the 38,000 new jobs created in Norway were filled by immigrants. Three-quartersof them were taken by foreigners already settled in Norway and the rest by guest workers.
    Guest workers are people who work and live in Norway for six months or less. After Norway recovered from its financial disaster in the early 1990s, its economy generated more jobs than Norwegians could fill. The government’s employment office recruited tens of thousands of guest workers from other countries, especially neighbors like Poland and the Baltic States.
    When the 2008 global financial breakdown resulted in increased unemployment elsewhere, it was even easier to attract workers from other countries. Over 100,000 guest workers worked in Norway in 2010, from Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Germany, and the UK, among others. The skill levels of guest workers range from engineers and consultants to unskilled agricultural and forestry workers.
    The guest-worker system requires that workers pay the standard payroll taxes even though they will not be around to collect pensions at the end of their working lives. On the other hand, the payroll taxes entitle them to unemployment compensation when their jobs in Norway run out, and depending on opportunities in their home countries, many stick around and collect unemployment while seeking fresh Norwegian jobs. But that’s not always easy, as Martins Selickis, a twenty-seven-year-old carpenter from Latvia, told