Turnover in child welfare among municipalities

The purpose of this report is to describe turnover among employees in the municipal child welfare from 2010 to 2011. In addition to comparing turnover in the municipal child welfare with turnover in other industries, we take a closer look at employees flowing into and out of the municipal child welfare. The analysis is based on the registers for the register-based employment statistics which provide information about active jobs in the 3rd week of November each year. These data make it possible to follow the same people over time. This analysis covers municipalities with child welfare services registered as a separate establishment in 2010 and 2011, a total of 292 municipalities.

There is no well-established statistical definition of the term turnover. Turnover is often used as a generic term for changes in the workforce of an establishment, while some reserve the term for one specific measure. Statistics Norway does not produce regular statistics for turnover. In present report we use definitions and methods from the publication Social and Economic Studies 104 “Job and worker flows in Norway and the OECD” by Harald Dale-Olsen and Dag Rønningen.

Data on flows of workers into and out of the municipal child welfare provides us with information about the overall changes in that workforce. Work flows into and out of the municipal child welfare can be a result of new job openings and job closings, or replacements without changing the number of jobs. Due to the expansion in the municipal child welfare from 2010 to 2011, we also made a comparison of only the replacements. This means that we control for workforce changes due to establishments growing or diminishing. Hires to replace employees who quit, are referred to as churning. We find that the average churning rate among employees in the municipal child welfare was 31.5 per cent from 2010 to 2011. Establishments with less than 5 employees had the lowest churning rate of 25.2 per cent, while establishments with 15 to 20 employees had the highest of 40.5 per cent.

The churning rate in the municipal child welfare is compared with corresponding numbers for some other industries. The average churning rate among employees in child welfare institutions was 35.0 per cent, a higher rate compared to the municipal child welfare. The churning rates among the other industries were as follows: Municipal general primary education 26.9 per cent, Municipal social service offices activities 28.3 per cent, Nursery schools 28.6 per cent, Wholesale and retail trade 23.3 per cent and Manufacturing 14.8 per cent.