Norway needs more nurses and other skilled workers from the Philippines, but the language barrier appears to be the biggest stumbling block to the recruitment of more Filipino workers to Oslo.

Employers said they prefer workers who can speak and write Norwegian, according to Rizalina Galiza Jenssen, the only legal recruiter of Filipino nurses to Norway.

Jenssen has been a resident of Norway for 28 years. She is married to a Norwegian.

Since 2001, Jenssen managed to recruit only 289 nurses from the Philippines since all are required to undergo a six-month course on Norwegian language.

She had to put up a small school building in her native province of Ilocos Norte, which conducts a Norwegian language course.

Jenssen said a total of US$6,000 will be paid out by each recruit but only after the worker gets his or her first salary.

When the new recruits arrive in Norway, Jenssen explained that they will go through an additional advanced tutorial course.

The Level 3 advanced Norwegian course normally takes about a month and is part of the expenses.

Seventeen of Jenssen's new recruits are set to start work next week in various nursing homes with an initial salary of almost US$3,000 each month.

It’s a dream come true for most Filipina nurses who have brought their families to Norway.

They say Norway is pro-family, and offers a lot of benefits to its residents, although Oslo is considered as the most expensive city in the world.

Ambassador Victoria Bataclan is pushing for a bilateral agreement between Norway and the Philippines.

Should this happens, Bataclan will lobby for a centralized learning center of Norwegian culture in Manila.

Apart from nurses, other potential jobs in Norway include those for engineers, hotel workers and IT specialists. -- Danny Buenafe, ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau in Oslo