Statistikk innhold
Statistics on
Employees in kindergartens and schools
The statistics cover wage earners (employed as of the 3rd week of November) in kindergarten, primary and lower secondary school, upper secondary school, post-secondary vocational school and in adult education institutions by characteristics such as occupation, age and educational background. Non-residents are excluded.
Selected figures from these statistics
- Employees in kindergarten and schools. Number and per centage of womenDownload table as ...Employees in kindergarten and schools. Number and per centage of women
2024 Kindergartens Primary and lower secondary schools Upper secondary schools Post-secondary vocational schools Adult education institutions Number Women (per cent) Number Women (per cent) Number Women (per cent) Number Women (per cent) Number Women (per cent) All employees 96 167 88.8 119 422 73.8 41 183 59.2 2 585 48.2 6 233 76.2 Teachers 32 671 89.7 80 097 73.2 28 067 56.6 1 631 42.1 4 449 77.9 Kindergarten leaders 4 401 90.3 5 337 67.0 2 702 56.1 239 49.4 358 70.4 Other employees working with the children/pupils 57 131 88.5 28 881 76.4 3 933 67.3 71 81.7 603 68.5 Other employees 1 964 74.8 5 107 75.9 6 481 66.5 644 59.3 823 74.8 Explanation of symbolsDownload table as ... - Employed teachers in school, by competance. Per cent.Download table as ...Employed teachers in school, by competance. Per cent.
2024 Primary and lower secondary schools Upper secondary schools Vocational school Adult education institutions Number of teachers 80 097 28 067 1 631 4 449 Long tertiary education with a teachers education 20.7 38.8 18.5 22.3 Long tertiary education with other educational sciences 2.3 3.3 2.5 4.2 Long tertiary education without educational science 1.6 3.9 12.0 4.2 Short tertiary education with a teachers education 54.4 38.6 24.8 51.4 Short tertiary education with other educational sciences 9.7 5.8 3.4 8.7 Short tertiary education without educational science 3.6 4.3 18.9 5.7 Upper secondary education 7.7 5.3 19.8 3.3 Explanation of symbolsDownload table as ... - Employed teachers in kindergartens and schools, by age. Per cent.Download table as ...Employed teachers in kindergartens and schools, by age. Per cent.
2024 Kindergartens Primary and lower secondary schools Upper secondary schools Post-secondary vocational schools Adult education institutions Number of teachers 32 671 80 097 28 067 1 631 4 449 29 years or younger 18.7 21.4 9.0 6.6 4.9 30-39 years 34.1 26.6 22.4 24.2 14.2 40-49 years 25.1 22.6 25.1 23.9 25.1 50-59 years 17.4 21.7 29.8 29.7 34.7 60 years or older 4.7 7.7 13.7 15.6 21.1 Explanation of symbolsDownload table as ... - Employees in kindergartens, by competance and occupation. Per cent.Download table as ...Employees in kindergartens, by competance and occupation. Per cent.
2024 Kindergarten teachers Kindergarten leaders Other employees working with the children/pupils Number of employees 32 671 4 401 57 131 Tertiary education with kindergarten-related pedagogical education 87.2 90.2 2.8 Upper secondary trade certificate in Child Care and Youth Work 2.8 0.3 31.4 Other 10.0 9.5 65.8 Explanation of symbolsDownload table as ...
About the statistics
The information under «About the statistics» was last updated 16 June 2025.
Employed persons are defined as individuals who engaged in at least one hour of paid work during the reference week, or those who were temporarily absent from such work due to reasons such as illness, vacation, or paid leave.
Wage earners (also referred to as employees) are individuals who are compensated for their work through wages
Employment: A person may hold multiple jobs across various firms. Should a person have multiple employments within the same industry (e.g. with two different primary schools), only one employment is selected.
Contractual percentage of full-time equivalent: This term refers to the proportion of full-time hours an employee is contractually agreed to work, as specified in their employment contract. The employer shall not consider additional work, overtime or different types of absence from work or if the hours have been paid or not. The information on contractual percentage of full-time equivalent is based on what is reported to the A-ordningen. For persons that are paid by the hour without contractual working hours per week, e.g on-call temporary workers, the employer can report 0 as contractual percentage of full-time equivalent. Statistics Norway will then calculate contractual percentage of full-time equivalent from what is reported as paid hours and number of hours that corresponds to a 100 per cent position in the month of reporting.
Contractual hours of full-time equivalent is defined as: Contractual percentage of full-time equivalent/100.
Place of residence, sex, and age are taken from the National Population Register. Place of residence is registered at the end of November. Age on the 31st December is used in the statistic.
Residents are defined as individuals registered in the National Population Register encompassing both permanent residents and temporary residents who plan to stay in Norway for at least six months.
Occupation is based on information from A-ordningen and coded according to the standard Classification of occupations (1998 Version STYRK-98 until 2023 and 2008 version STYRK-08 thereafter). The statistic for 2024 was updated to use a variant of the latest version of the classification of occupations (STYRK-08).
- Up to and including 2023 Kindergarten Teachers/Teachers are employees with occupational codes (STYRK-98) beginning with 23 or 33 (except 2352).
- Up to and including 2023, Leaders are employees with occupational codes (STYRK-98) starting with 1210, 1227, 1228, 1319, 2352.
- Up to and including 2023, Other employees working with the children/pupils are employees with occupational codes (STYRK-98) starting with 5131, 5139, 5132, 3460, 3232.
The characteristics of place of work and industry division are obtained from the Central Register of Business Establishments and Enterprises (CRE) and apply to the local unit where the person works. The industrial code describes the unit’s activity.Information about the industry is retrieved from the CRE. Industry is classified according to the Classification of Standard Industrial Classification based on their primary activities.
- Kindergartens are local units with industrial code 88.911.
- Primary and lower secondary schools are local units with industrial code 85.201.
- Upper secondary schools are local units with industrial codes 85.310/85.320.
- Post-secondary vocational schools are local units with industrial code 85.410
- Adult education institutions are local units with industrial code 85.594.
Pedagogical education and kindergarten-relevant pedagogical education are based on information about completed tertiary education in the National Education Database (NUDB) and relevant education is selected based on codes according to the The Norwegian Standard Classification of Education (NUS2000).
Starting from 2024 a variant of NUS is used to group teacher educations. The category Subject specific- and vocational teacher education has been split into two new categories: Subject specific teacher education and Vocational teacher education. Driving school instructors, included in the category until 2023, are now excluded.
The industrial classification is in accordance with the revised Standard Industrial Classification (NOS D 383), which is based on the EU-standard of NACE Rev. 2. A variation of this classification is used in this statistic.
The occupational classification is in accordance with the Standard Classification of Occupations (the 1998 Version was used until 2023 when the statistic was updated to use the 2008 Version). A variant of the classification is used in this statistic.
Breakdown by county is in accordance with the list of counties and municipalities as of the 1st day of the middle month of a given quarter.
Educational programmes are classified according to the Norwegian Standard Classification of Education (NUS).
Name: Employees in kindergartens and schools
Topic: Education
Division for Education and Culture Statistics
National and county level
The statistics are published annually in June and refer to the 3rd week of November the year before.
Collected and revised data are stored securely by Statistics Norway in compliance with applicable legislation on data processing.
Statistics Norway can grant access to the source data (de-identified or anonymised microdata) on which the statistics are based, for researchers and public authorities for the purposes of preparing statistical results and analyses. Access can be granted upon application and subject to conditions. Refer to the details about this at Access to data from Statistics Norway.
The statistics cover employees in kindergarten, primary and lower secondary school, upper secondary school and adult education institutions by characteristics such as occupation, age and educational background.
Previously such statistics have only been available in a dispersed manner, based on different types of source data and definitions. The statistics on Employees in kindergartens and schools provide figures based on common source data (A-ordningen and the National Education Database) and a coherent set of definitions.
The statistics complements but does not replace the statistics about employees provided e.g. by the Directorate of Education based on the Kindergarten database BASIL (BArnehage-Statistikk-InnrapporteringsLøsning) or the primary/lower secondary School database Grunnskolens informasjonssystem, GSI. Their purpose, level of detail and geographical scope differ.
Important users of the education statistics are public administration, special interest organisations, the media, researchers, business and industry. Key users among the ministries are, in particular, the Ministry of Education and Research.
No external users have access to statistics before they are released at 8 a.m. on ssb.no after at least three months’ advance notice in the release calendar. This is one of the most important principles in Statistics Norway for ensuring the equal treatment of users.
The statistics are developed, produced and disseminated pursuant to Act no. 32 of 21 June 2019 relating to official statistics and Statistics Norway (the Statistics Act).
Regulation (EC) No 0452/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2008 concerning the production and development of statistics on education and learning. Commission Regulation (EU) No 88/2011 of 2 February 2011 implementing Regulation (EC) No 0452/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the production and development of statistics on education and lifelong learning, as regards statistics on education and training systems.
The statistics cover resident wage earners who engaged in at least one hour of paid work during the reference week (3rd week of November), and those who were temporarily absent from such work due to reasons such as illness, vacation, or paid leave.
Employees in the following industry divisions are covered:
85.201 – primary and lower secondary schools
85.320 og 85.310 – upper secondary schools
88.911 – kindergartens
85.594 – adult education institutions
85.410 - post-secondary vocational schools
An employee is only counted once within each of these four groups, but may occur in more than one group (e.g. a teacher working both at a primary school and an adult education institution).
For employees working in kindergartens, an additional verification is conducted using data from the kindergarten database BASIL. Only those local units that are registered as having children in attendance as of mid-December are included in this data set.
For employees in primary and lower secondary schools an additonal verification is conducted using data from the database GSI. Only those local units that are registered as having pupils in attendance on the 1st of October are included.
For employees in upper secondary schools an additonal verification is conducted using data from the upper secondary education database VIGO. Only those local units that are registered as having pupils in attendance on the 1st of October are included.
The main source of the statistics is A-ordningen, which is a coordinated digital collection of employment, income, and tax deductions for the Norwegian Tax Administration, the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV), and Statistics Norway. Statistics Norway receives information about wages and employees directly from the a-meldingen.
Information about completed education is based on records in the National education database (NUDB).
Editing is defined here as checking, examining and amending data.
The statistics has no separate data collection, but are based on a number of different registries:
- Statistics Norway receives data about wage earners from A-ordningen.
- Variables such as place of work and industry division are obtained from Enhetsregisteret and the Norwegian Tax Administration
- Personal characteristics are obtained from the National Registry
- Information about completed education in the National education database is gathered from registered such as student data held by the Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD) and the administrative systems of some higher education institutions. Information about completed upper and lower secondary education is mainly based on data from the counties through the database VIGO.
Interviewers and everyone who works at Statistics Norway have a duty of confidentiality. Statistics Norway has its own data protection officer.
Statistics Norway does not publish figures where there is a risk of identifying individual data about persons or households.
The suppression method is used in these statistics to ensure this.
More information can be found on Statistics Norway’s website under Methods in official statistics, in the ‘Confidentiality’ section.
The general rule is not to publish data if less than 3 individuals are found within a cell or unit in a table. This is to prevent identification of individuals within the statistics.
The statistics are based on A-ordningen.
Some errors might occur due to incorrect reporting of the information (measurement error). Furthermore, errors might occur as the result of data processing conducted at Statistics Norway (processing error).
There are indications of gradual improvement in the reporting to A-ordningen from 2015 to 2016, even though the reporting during the first year of A-ordningen (2015) is acknowledged as having been satisfactory.
More uncertainty is expected in the number of wage earners at a detailed regional level than at a more aggregated level (e.g., the country as a whole).
Regarding information about completed education and educational attainment, errors may occur in the administrative system of educational institutions, in particular with self-reported information from the student or erroneous reporting from the data provider. However, a number of these non-sampling errors will be identified as part of control and revision routines performed by Statistics Norway.
A revision is a planned change to figures that have already been published, for example when releasing final figures as a follow-up to published preliminary figures. See also Statistics Norway’s principles for revisions.
Revisions in previously published seasonally adjusted figures can take place when new observations (or revised previous observations) are included in the basis of calculation. The scope of the revision is usually greatest in the most relevant part (last 1–2 years) of seasonally adjusted time series. A corresponding revision in trends is also typical, particularly at the end of the time series. The extent of the revision of trends and seasonally adjusted figures is partly determined by the revision policy, see Section 4 of the European Statistical System (ESS) Guidelines on Seasonal Adjustment on the Eurostat website. For more information on the revision of seasonally adjusted figures, see the ‘About seasonal adjustment’ section in the relevant statistics.