Laura, a Spanish nurse working in Norway, has explained how the Nordic country pays staff for overtime and how it rewards employees who give up their free time to extend a shift.
The nurse described a situation in which her supervisor asked her to keep working after she had already finished her scheduled hours. She said that having to work overtime for an employer effectively means giving up your own free time to help your workplace, and that in the Norwegian system this contribution is paid at a rate well above the ordinary hourly wage.
A pay increase of up to 100% per hour
Laura said the exact rules on overtime pay depend on the employer, whether that is a municipality, a hospital or a private company. She explained that the first four additional hours worked come with a surcharge: staff are paid their normal hourly wage plus an extra 50% of that hourly rate. As an example, she said a base salary of 30 euros an hour rises to 45 euros an hour during that period.
Once a shift extension goes beyond that four-hour threshold, the extra pay rises sharply. Laura said that from that point on, workers are paid 100% extra, meaning every additional hour is paid at double the normal rate. She said this rule applies directly when a professional takes on a double shift to cover staffing gaps.
The alternative of time off and 'afspassering'
To illustrate how the sliding scale works in practice, Laura gave the example of doubling up a morning and afternoon shift. On a base wage of 30 euros an hour, she said, working from three to seven in the afternoon would pay 45 euros an hour, while the hours from seven to ten at night would be paid at 60 euros an hour.
Alongside the extra pay, Norway's labor system lets staff bank additional hours through a scheme known as afspassering, a form of compensatory time off. Laura said workers can accumulate those hours and, at some point, tell their manager they have built up eight hours and would like to exchange them for a particular afternoon shift off.
Norway is known internationally for high wages and strong labor protections, and its healthcare system has in recent years attracted foreign staff, including Spanish nurses drawn by pay and working conditions that differ from those at home.
Laura said that needing to rely on overtime in the first place points to shortages in health centers, even as she welcomed the fact that staff availability is properly rewarded. She said the starting point should be that having to work extra time is not an ideal situation, stressing the importance of receiving fair compensation for that sacrifice.
