Health care personnel, 2006, 4th quarter

Municipality, county and national level. Statistics at municipality and county level are published in StatBank Norway. Statistics concerning the national level are published in Today's statistics.

The statistics are published annually, referring to the situation of the third week of November. Preliminary figures for activities in municipalities and counties are published annually in March through KOSTRA.

Figures are sent annually to Eurostat, WHO and OECD

Statistics on municipality and county level are published in the StatBank, while figures at national level are published in Today's statistics. More detailed statistics can be ordered.

The basic material is stored.

The purpose of register-based statistics on employment of health care personnel is to provide information on the structure and development of employment among persons with health care education. To get a broader view of the structure of the health care industry personnel with other educations, working in the health care industry, are included. For more information on the definitions and classifications by industry please cf. Standard of Industrial Classification NOS D 383,

The statistics were first published in July 2002, presenting statistics for 2000 and 2001.

Important users of these statistics are public administration, organisations and researchers with a particular interest in the health care industry, as well as the media and the public in general. The statistics provide information on the status and development for health care personnel and can be used as a basis for decision-making, reports and prognosis.

Not relevant

Health care personnel

The Division for Health Statistics in Statistics Norway publishes statistics on personnel based on data collected by questionnaires in most fields covered by public health plans. The statistics are divided into more detailed fields within the health sector (http://www.ssb.no/emner/03) than the register based statistics. Since these questionnaires are not collected on an individual level, it is not possible to show the distribution according to, for example, demographic variables. Furthermore, the statistics do not cover work for individuals with a health care education working outside the health care industry.

Most of the data from questionnaires collected by the Division of Health Statistics is published in KOSTRA information sheets. Statistics on personnel in private and public dental care in KOSTRA are taken from the register-based health care personnel statistics.

Employment

The register-based statistics for health care personnel is a special version of the register-based employment statistics which is covering all educational groups and industries. In addition the register-based statistics for health care personnel is supplemented with foreign persons (i.e. persons not resident in Norway) working in the health care industry.

Act on Official Statistics and Statistics Norway § 10, cf. Act on the employer's reporting of employment and income conditions, etc. (the a-opplysnings Act) § 3.

Not relevant

The population in register-based statistics on health care personnel is persons with a health care education. In addition all other personnel working in the health care industry are included. The statistics also cover foreigners with short term employment in Norway, working for a Norwegian employer. The observational unit are individuals (persons), but the statistics include all active employment per person.

Persons living in Norway with employment abroad are not included in these statistics. These persons will however be included when figures concerning education are presented.

From 2015 onwards

From 2015 onwards a new joint reporting solution called a-ordningen gathers the reporting from the employers to the Ee-register, produced by the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration, as well as some reports to the Tax Administration and Statistics Norway. A-ordningen is a coordinated digital collection of data on employment, income and tax deductions to the Tax Administration, the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Organization and Statistics Norway. This new joint collection provides Statistics Norway with information on wages and employed persons directly from a-meldingen, which is the electronic message containing all the information collected, rather than the multiple sources used until 2014. You can find more information about the new reporting at www.altinn.no/en/a-ordningen.

A-ordningen has replaced the Register of Employers and Employees and the Register of End of the Year Certificates (Register of Wage Sums). In addition to a-ordningen other registers provide information, the most important is the Register for Personal Tax Payers administered by the Directorate of Taxes, the Register of Conscripts from the Armed Forces Personnel and National Service Centre and The Central Coordinating Register for Legal Entities.

The main sources for health care education are the Register for health care personnel administered by the Directorate of Health and the Norwegian database of education (NUDB) managed by Statistics Norway.

The registers mentioned above are still being used to assure the quality of the data, to consolidate the consistency between different data sources as well as choosing the right main job and to classify people as employed. A few additional registers are also being used for these purposes, the ARENA-register produced by the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Organization is one example. It provides data on unemployed and people engaged in labour market projects.

The registerbased employment statistics on health care personnel is a full count.

 4^th quarter 2000 – 4^th quarter 2014

Register-based employment statistics in Statistics Norway are based on individual register data from several registers. Information related to employees and employment is collected from the Register of Employees (the National Insurance Administration), the End of the Year Certificate Register and the Tax Register (the Directorate of Taxes), and payroll registers. Variables concerning the enterprises, such as industry and institutional sector, are collected from the Central Register of Establishments and Enterprises (BoF). Additional information is collected from registers about persons engaged in job creation programs, maternity payments and cash benefits for parents (the National Insurance Administration), as well as Statistics Norway's register on doctor-certified sickness absence. The definition of employment is therefore based on a number of different sources. Statistics Norway has developed a system for common utilization of these sources.

The main sources for health care education are the Register for health care personnel administered by the Directorate of Health and the Norwegian database of education (NUDB) managed by Statistics Norway.

The register based employment statistics on health care personnel covers the complete population.

Register of Health Care Personnel

Administered by the Directorate of Health. This register gives an overview of all health care personnel given license to practise their profession. Statistics Norway receives status per November for all personnel with a license to practise. The register contains educations where a state authorization is required, and therefore does not contain information about all health care educations. People with health care education who have not applied for a license are not included. The register may also include people who after application have been granted a Norwegian license, but never have practiced their profession in Norway.

Norwegian Database of education (NUDB)

Statistics Norway's own register of education is a supplement to the Register of Health Care Personnel. This register gives an overview of all education accomplished for all individuals settled in Norway by October 1st.

The Register of Employees

Statistics Norway receives data on changes in the employee register from the National Insurance Administration on a weekly basis. From 2015 onwards, the register is replaced by a-ordningen.

The End of the Year Certificate register

Concerning information from the Directorate of Taxes' End of the Year Certificate Register, preliminary deduction in March is used as data source. From 2015 onwards, the register is replaced by a-ordningen.

The Tax Register

Information from the tax returns is available in electronic version. Statistics Norway collects statistical material from the Directorate of Taxes annually.

The Central Register of Establishments and Enterprises

Variables concerning enterprises, such as the municipal location of workplace and industry are collected from the Central Register of Establishments and Enterprises, managed by Statistics Norway.

For the three most central registers concerning the production of statistics, checks and revisions follow this procedure:

The National Insurance Administration conducts an annual control of selected employers

Statistics Norway controls that enterprises with multiple establishments have separate numbers for each establishment and that the employees are registered at the establishment they actually work. This is important in order to ensure correct information about industry and municipal location of the workplace.

Statistics Norway controls the Register of Employees by comparing it with the End of the Year Certificate Register, the ARENA register's statistics on unemployment etc.

A-ordningen

Statistics Norway receive monthly data from the Tax Administration Shared Services Agency (Etatens fellesforvaltning, EFF), a management entity of the Tax Administration, which administers a-ordningen on behalf of the three owner agencies; the Tax Administration, the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Organization and Statistics Norway.

Controls are carried out at several stages:

• Rules of business in the reception at The Tax Administration Shared Services Agency (EFF)
• In the production system for wages and employment at Statistics Norway

 Rules of business (controls) in the reception at EFF:

A number of rules of business (controls) are being run to detect errors/omissions in the submitted information, after a-meldingen is received by EFF. Small to medium sized legal entities with a declaration obligation receives a feedback in a short amount of time (less than a minute). The larger legal entities have to wait a little longer for the feedback. The feedbacks from EFF include all uncovered discrepancies, where in the submitted information the discrepancies take place and what rule of business has been broken.

Rules of business and errors that can occur are documented at the homepages of a-ordningen: https://www.skatteetaten.no/en/business-and-organisation/employer/the-a-melding/ 

Controls in the production structure of Statistics Norway:

A number of checks and automatic actions are taking place during the production, the purpose is to ensure the quality of the data for statistical purposes. We distinguish between three types of controls:

a)      Automatic checks and actions

b)      Reports (monitoring)

c)      Manual checks

 In addition to this, controls and checks are being carried out throughout the year, regardless of publication.

Checks that aim to uncover defects and discrepancies that should be corrected are mostly aimed at the employments. Several controls have uncovered errors and missing values concerning the number of hours in a full-time position and the percentage position, combined with other features like whether a job is a main job or second job, the contractual working hours and the payment arrangements, such as:

• The number of hours worked are missing
• The number of hours that qualifies as full-time is probably reported wrongly
• The number of hours that qualifies as full-time deviates from the reported contractual working hours
• The number of hours that qualifies as full-time are extremely high or low
• The position percentage is missing

Many registered employments are removed (not considered active) during the production because wage of the employment relation has not been registered in the reference month.  This could apply to seasonal workers who have not performed any work in the reference month (and therefore not been paid), and where a date of termination of employment (wrongly) has not been reported, or in cases where individuals have mistakenly been reported with an active employment (e.g. temporary staff who has not been working during the given period).

Not relevant

Figures which reveals a person identity will not be published.

From 2015 onwards

A new data Source

The main source for information about wage earners in the statistics Health care personnel, is the register-based employment statistics. From the year 2015, these statistics are based on a new data source for employees. Until the end of 2014, the main data source was The Central Register on Employers and Employees (EE register), produced by the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Organisation (NAV). In 2015, this reporting to NAV was coordinated with the reporting of earnings and personnel data to the Tax Administration and Statistics Norway. This common reporting system is called “a-ordningen”. “A-ordningen” provides a better data basis compared to the EE register, as it is more accurate on the individual level in addition to covering a greater number of employees.

Change in the time series

With the transition to the new data source, we obtain more precise figures on the number of employed persons. When using this new source, the number of employed persons, which include all sectors, is 60 000 lower than in the old data base, which used the number employed in the country from the Labour Force Surveys as the base. This is a modest difference of 2.4 per cent compared to the total number employed, but as a result of the change in the data base the register numbers for the number employed in the 4th quarter of 2014 compared to the 4th quarter of 2015 do not express an actual change.

Data source from the 4^th quarter of 2000 – 4^th quarter of 2014

During the production of the register-based statistics for 2002, several improvements in the production routine have been made. The increase in the number of people with a health care education is partly a result of an upgrade of the Norwegian Population Register, a clearing-up of the definitions of age for foreign citizens, and the fact that ten new educations have become state authorized. The increase in the number of employed is caused by the new register-based employment statistics implemented, which implies in particular that employments with a small number of working hours now are available in the statistics.

The reason for the reduction in the number of contracted man-years is that the Register of Employees includes information about the exact working hours per week. This variable was implemented for about 70 per cent of the employees in 2001 and approximately 100 per cent in 2002. For the employees for whom we lack information either in 2000 or for a few in 2001, the exact number of hours is measured by using the average for the groups with exact working time.

The large reduction between 2000 and 2001 in the number of dispensing pharmacists and the corresponding increase in the number of pharmacists is a consequence of a change in 2001, making it possible for dispensing pharmacists to apply for an official license as pharmacist. Both people with education as dispensing pharmacist and as cand.pharm can now apply for license to practice as a pharmacist. In addition, the pharmacist education became state authorized as of January 2001.

The strong increase between 2001 and 2002 in the number of people educated as medical secretary, care worker, paramedic, pharmacy technician, dental secretary, dental technician, audiologist, certified prosthetist, pharmacist and clinical nutritionist is caused by the possibility to apply for a license to practice as of January 2001.

Data source for Oslo municipality

Due to introduction of a new computer system, the municipality of Oslo has experienced problems with notifications to the Central Register of Employees, thus the number of employed persons in Oslo municipality is likely to be under-reported by 2　500 – 3　500 persons in 4 ^th quarter 2012. This data bias is counter-balanced in the production of this statistic by corresponding upward adjustments in the number of persons employed by other enterprises. Since these adjustments are made for all employers in all industries and sectors, effects of these adjustments are negligible in individual tables, except for some of the tables concerning municipal authorities in Oslo municipality.