Content
Published:
This is an archived release.
Rising unemployment
Unemployment increased from 2.9 per cent of the labour force in December 2008 to 3.2 per cent in March 2009. Employment was stable in the same period.
Unemployment increased by 9 000 from December (as measured by the average of the three months from November to January) to March (as measured by the average of the three months from February to April). The largest increase was in the age group 25-74.
Seasonally-adjusted figures for those registered unemployed and on government initiatives to promote employment with the Labour and Welfare Organisation (NAV) increased by 15 000 from December to March.
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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 also up in other countries
Unemployment increased in the EU countries as well as in the USA. All figures refer to seasonally-adjusted data from Eurostat .
Stable employment
Adjusted for seasonal variations, the Labour Force Survey (LFS) shows that the number in employment decreased by 7 000 from December (as measured by the average of the three months from November to January) to March (as measured by the average of the three months from February to April). This is inside the error margin, and when taking the error margin into account, employment has been stable since April 2008.
Man-weeks worked
From December to March, the average number of man-weeks (37.5 hours) worked each week was up 13 000. This is inside the error margin in 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 who are not registered as permanent residents or who are planning to stay for less than six months are not included in the employment figure in the LFS. If these people lose their job, it does not count as a fall in employment or a rise in unemployment. In national accounts figures (NR), employed non-residents are included in the employment figure as long as they work in an establishment in Norway. If employment decreases in this group, it will count as a fall in employment in NR. Statistics Norway publishes separate figures for all 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. We normally 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. 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