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Comment by terda12 | Hacker News Reader

Visiting Norway, I always thought it is kind of a weird country. On one hand it's one of the richest countries in the world. On the other hand, I've seen so many young Norwegian women work hard cleaning toilets and hotel rooms. Such jobs would be considered "low rung" at in the US but in Norway they treat their low rung jobs as something to be proud of.

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Someone has to clean the toilets. You're expressing shock that Norway doesn't have a racial underclass like latinos or blacks in the US? Kind of a weird thing to comment on, Norway is a very homogenous country.

Did the OP edit the original comment? I don't see any mention of race and the OP is just stating he is impressed by how Norwegian women take pride in doing even the most menial of jobs (which is something I noted too when I was there).

Just found it strange how did you come to the conclusion of a "racial underclass" when there was no mention of it so i was wondering if it is an american thing.

Note: While not as multi-cultural as the US of course, Norway is not exclusively a "homogeneous" society and in fact, I just noted that almost 1/3 of my Norwegian friends are not "Nordic born". You obviously haven't been there if you made that conclusion yourself.

Who else would work those jobs if not Norwegians? It's implied if they didn't another group would do it.

There are people working as cleaners in Norway that earn about the same as the average software developer. (cleaning offshore on oil platforms[1]).

Norway has a very tight pay distribution. Most people earn close to the average/median, and those who earn more get hit pretty hard by progressive taxing.

[1]: http://www.dn.no/nyheter/energi/2010/08/30/her-tjener-renhol...

Two things are to be noted here: 1) Even "low rung" jobs pay a decent salary. That's the main reason why everything is so more expensive here even compared to Sweden. 2) Cleaning staff is probably the industry with the highest number of foreigners, either new refugees or EU-immigrants. So it depends on your definition of "Norwegian woman", i'd argue most of these workers were not born in Norway.

That may also be due to the egalitarian nature of Norway, the gap between the lowest and highest paid jobs are not that large. If you remove the statistical anomalies. So any job will allow you to live a similar life as your neighbors whom may have a more "perceived" glamorous job. There really isn't much of a working class nor upper class, just variations of a huge middle class.

Though I am not sure I share you opinion on who does the cleaning though. Maybe in a more rural hotel that is the case but whenever I go back to the Oslo especially more recently nearly all the "low rung" jobs are done by recent immigrants.

I noticed hotels seemed to be mostly eastern Europeans, offices a mix of Somali, Vietnamese etc and in restaurants mostly Swedes. There certainly was often discussions in the media of Norwegian youth being too spoilt for those jobs and the country depended on over qualified immigrants to fill these necessary roles. This may also be the case in many other countries.

A full time shift job with no overtime at a normal grocery store (40 hrs/week) should earn you about 350 000 - 400 000 nok, or usd 42-48k

Keep in mind the cost of living is high in Oslo.

I am not saying it needs to be young, Norwegian women, but who would you expect to see cleaning toilets?

So who cleans the toilets in the USA? Old american men?

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