Record-high labour force participation by women

Employment increased by 63,000 last year, while unemployment dropped by 16,000. The number of people without work in third quarter 1997 totalled 95,000, accounting for 4.1 per cent of the work force, compared to 4.9 per cent the same quarter last year. At the same time, the participation of women in the work force has never been so high as it is now.

The percentage of employed people in the population aged 16 to 74 years was 73.7 per cent in third quarter 1997, compared to 72.4 per cent the same quarter last year. Labour participation increased by 1.5 percentage points for women and 1.1 percentage points for men, new figures from Statistics Norway's labour force survey (LFS) show.

All age groups saw an increase in labour participation numbers. The greatest increase was among persons aged 16 to 19 and 25 to 29 years. Labour force participation is currently record high among women aged 25 to 66 years. Compared to the record during the previous economic boom, in third quarter 1988, labour force participation among young people under 25 years of age and older people over 66 years of age is still five to 10 percentage points lower than then.

Employment climbed in most industries, with the strongest rise seen in business services, manufacturing and health and social services. Agriculture and forestry showed a continued decline in the number employed in those sectors.

Fewer long-term unemployed

From third quarter 1996 to the same period this year the LFS showed unemployment among men dropped by 7,000 and by 9,000 among women. Unemployment declined from 4.5 to 3.9 per cent for men and from 5.2 to 4.3 per cent for women. Among young people aged 16 to 24 years, 10.5 per cent were jobless, compared to 11.5 per cent during the same quarter in 1996. The number of long-term unemployed, i.e. persons who have been out of a job for a consecutive period of more than six months, went down by 8,000. In the third quarter 1997 the percentage of long-term unemployed was 25 per cent compared to 29 per cent the same quarter the year before.

Increased sickness absence

In third quarter 1997, 66,000 were absent from work due to illness during the survey week. This is 6,000 more compared to the same time in 1996. The sickness absence percentage was 3.3 per cent for women and 2.7 per cent for men, an increase from the year before of 0.1 percentage point for women and 0.3 percentage point for men.

New Statistics

Labour force survey, 3rd quarter 1997.
Statistics are published quarterly in the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics. Detailed figures are published in the basic tables from the Labour Force Survey. More information: Ole Sandvik, tel. +47 21 09 45 77, e-mail: osa@ssb.no, or Inger Håland, tel. +47 21 09 47 80, e-mail: iha@ssb.no.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 44, 1997