Norway's Venstre party proposes 1,000 state trainee roles

Abid Raja of the Venstre party is calling for 1,000 new trainee positions within the state as part of the upcoming national budget. Raja argues that the current government budget lacks measures to support recent graduates, despite record-high unemployment rates among young people holding master's degrees.

According to recent data, 9.5 percent of master's graduates in Norway were unemployed six months after completing their studies. The situation is even more severe for those in science and IT fields, where unemployment rates for master's graduates exceeded 20 percent. Raja has also proposed a requirement that ten percent of public sector hires must be recent graduates.

The Minister of Labour has rejected the proposal, stating that the government is prioritizing other groups, specifically targeting youth who are currently neither in employment nor education.