not to mention almost everyone know english there, if you make even a mild attempt to learn norwegian and show that effort, overnight the locals will outta respect just speak english to you all the time. many people just do not understand this. make a small attempt and we make larger attempt

100% agree, with John, not just because we both share the same Christian name.
Norway is a salary sucker.
You cannot operate here as a contractor. Contracting here is essentially being coerced into acting as a temporary worker/employee of a large resource management company with a payroll. So zero rights, high tax burden and no control of your circumstances.
The whole Norwegian system is rigged from its foundations up.
Government monopolies would rather watch people starve than see the cost of goods fall in line with market forces. As an example they are currently pushing/coercing people from butter to margarine, for “their health”…..
I am actually trying to work less to avoid the crippling bracket taxes levied upon the lower middle class upwards. In Norway it is better to be filthy rich or unskilled, anything in the middle and you will be robbed mercilessly.
Accommodation is astronomically expensive, 10,000 NOK per month to live in a noisy damp basement dwelling, and this does not include energy.
If you wish to eat a healthy diet, meat (Beef not the best cuts) is 400 NOK per kilo, and the much lauded cheap (don’t make me laugh) Salmon is farmed making it one of the most deadly toxic foods one can consume (but don’t worry the government corruption actively silences any truthful scientific research on the pesticide content of the farmed Salmon, business connections do work at the top of the political cesspit).
The harder you work, the less you earn, absolutely zero incentive to work hard under the crippling progressive tax regime that is squarely aimed at middle income earners (worker bees for the collective hive).
Once you’ve been taxed/robbed of your income, you have to deal with the cost of living, ten times higher than anywhere else on the planet.
Then, there is access to basic medicine cabinet supplies, Aspirin, is pharmacy access only, so ten times more expensive than it should be (starting to see the pattern?). Paracetamol is a dangerous hepatoxic drug with little medicinal use and is freely available to buy in supermarkets. Oh and if you ask a Norwegian their brainwashed response is, Aspirin is dangerous, clearly they’ve never seen a person die slowly from a Paracetamol overdose. Aspirin thins the blood and helps regulate hormones, paracetamol is just toxic garbage.
Then the cost of public transport, you are coerced into buying monthly tickets (you cannot buy a return ticket so have to pay double to travel return) with a smartphone, no smartphone? Then you are effectively excluded or have to pay twice the price. Local bus services are non existent on weekends and fragmented during the day. If you work overtime in the evening then there will be no bus, so all that overtime pay will be spent on a taxi home with of course the governments obligatory 12% cut (yes, another monopoly).
If you like a drink you are best off investing in a still and learning the art of distillery, unless you want to contribute more of your income to the government monopoly on alcohol!
As for the wages being higher I refer to my above statement, certainly if you are unskilled and have no ambition to improve your lot, but as a professional you will soon find you hit the tax barrier even though you earn 25% less than comparative positions in other countries, as soon as you hit the tax barrier, you will be working at a high level and earning the same as a hairdresser.
I find the government ignorant and stifling, there is no space for the individual and a small select bunch of activist experts can force their backward vision of the world upon the masses with impunity.
The state monopolies are deeply corrupt.
Anything that could be remotely described as fun is taxed into Hades.
And Norway is at the head of the “digital transformation” another totalitarian grab at your privacy and freedom sold as a convenience, and the Norwegians suck up the propaganda like a sponge!
The country is essentially lost, too many foreign immigrants with a high birthrate, they have already surpassed the limit for replacement, now it is just a matter of time. So all those high wage low skilled jobs will be taken in the not too distant future and the quality of life will continue to fall….

What a hateful person you are.

Huh? I almost can’t believe that only for the reason of not choosing to learn Norwegian at the age of 50 you’ve declined this offer, and missed a chance to enjoy a good life in Norway. I almost suspect another motive for not wanting to go, am I right? Usually, at the age of 50 it’s not difficult to learn a language at all.

I agree with you Bjarne!
I grew up in the UK, my Mother is from Molde and my Father is from Lancashire. Why the hell they chose the UK as their base I’ll never really understand given that my Father could have earned a similar or better wage in Norway. I moved here in 2012 with my Italian wife and two boys and have never had a moment of regret! Best place in the world to raise kids that I know of. I feel that I can justify that statement by having lived in the UK (31 years), Italy (1 year), the USA (1 year) and now Norway (nearly 10 years).
The taxes are high, but the value for money we get back is much better than anywhere else that I have lived and worked, child care is stupidly cheap, health costs are reasonable and with a small investment in equipment you have the entire country as a playground for you and your family to enjoy.
When we first moved here I was quite poor but a 40 dollar investment in a couple of fishing rods kept me and my boys entertained for hours each week and put a few dinners on the table. As time went by and I quickly progressed in the employment market, we then bought our first house and with the tax savings we made through interest rate relief (the UK doesn’t offer this) we bought our first boat. I came here with 10 000 kr and 1 suitcase full of clothes. 10 years later we are very comfortably ‘well off’ and have a better life than we ever could have had in the UK, Italy or USA. Living the Norwegian dream 🙂

From the statistics here in SSB Norway, you can clearly see that the average wage across Norway is well below 600,000 NOKs per year. ()

How the hell did you make those numbers as average? maybe as a top medical doctor with 15 years of practice experience, you’d make about 1.5M a year, but certainly nothing NOTHING close to what an average person makes.

Bruv you a facist, man why complain sweden is sweet bruv

Take out the last zero and voila! (To be more exact, add 10% of what you have left.)

Like all things trump, this comment didn’t age well….compare and contrast Norway’s response to Covid-19 versus trump’s and his maskless/mindless followers …who wouldn’t want to leave the U.S. with the orange sociopathic monster in charge and so many numskulls still supporting him…thank god it won’t be much longer.