Content
Published:
This is an archived release.
Rising unemployment
Unemployment was up with 13 000 people from August to November, and constituted 2.9 per cent of the labour force in November 2008. Employment was stable in the same period.
Adjusted for seasonal variations, the Labour Force Survey (LFS) shows that the number in employment decreased by 3 000 from August (as measured by the average of the three months from July to September) to November (as measured by the average of the three months from October to December). This is inside the error margin, and considering the error margins there has not been any growth in employment since April 2008. The growth in employment first came to and end for the age group 16-24, but has now also ceased for the age group 25-74. For figures by age, see StatBank
More people unemployed
The unemployment rate increased from 2.4 per cent of the labour force in August (as measured by the average of the three months from July to September) to 2.9 per cent in November (as measured by the average of the three months from October to December). The number of unemployed was up by 13 000 people. Seasonally-adjusted figures for people registered unemployed and on government initiatives to promote employment with the Labour and Welfare Organisation (NAV) increased by 8 000 from August to November.
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NAV reports that 4 700 persons were incorrectly registered unemployed in February 2010. The erroneous figure was lower in previous months, but dates back to October 2008.This has no consequence for the LFS-numbers published by Statistics Norway, only for the comparisons with NAV's figures. Read more on NAV's website, or contact stein.langeland@nav.no |
Unemployment up in many countries
Unemployment was up in many countries from August to November, among them the USA, Sweden, Denmark and France, while it was stable in Germany. All figures refer to seasonally-adjusted data from Eurostat .
Man-weeks worked
From August to November the average number of man-weeks (37.5 hours) worked each week decreased by 1 000, and this is inside the error margin of the LFS.
Employment and unemployment figures include permanent residentsThe LFS only includes persons who are registered as residents in the population register. Persons working in Norway, but who are not registered as permanent residents or who are planning to stay for less than six months, are not included in the number in employment in the LFS. Some of these will later become registered residents and then be included in the population covered by the LFS. Statistics Norway publishes separate figures for registered non-residents once a year. See short-term immigrants . |
Uncertain figuresThe purpose of making seasonal adjustments is to describe the development over the last year, corrected for seasonal variations. In order to reduce uncertainty, the published series are three-month moving averages of the seasonally-adjusted figures. However, uncertainty means that sampling errors must be considered when interpreting the figures from the LFS. Usually we compare the latest non-overlapping three month periods. An overview of sampling errors in the LFS can be found in “About the statistics”, chapter 5 section 3. Quarterly LFS figures, not seasonally adjusted, are presented in a separate article . |
RevisionsThe complete time series is re-estimated each month, and this may cause some adjustments of previously published figures. As an example, when the figures for last month were published, the unemployment rate, for September was 2.5 per cent, while it has now been changed to 2.6 per cent. See Revisions for more information . |
Tables:
The statistics is published with Labour force survey.
Contact
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Arbeidsmarked og lønn
E-mail: arbeidsmarked@ssb.no
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Erik Herstad Horgen
E-mail: erik.horgen@ssb.no
tel.: (+47) 93 08 68 62
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Ole Sandvik
E-mail: ole.sandvik@ssb.no
tel.: (+47) 99 04 82 06