Increased employment

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The employment rate for the population 15-74 years was 67,9 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2019. This is 0.3 percentage points up from same period the previous year. The employment rate has increased since 2017.

Written by: Camilla Sundt

According to the Labour Force Survey (LFS), 2 732 000 persons were employed in the fourth quarter of 2019. The year-on-year increase was 24 000 persons. This is outside the margin of error in the LFS.

Figure 1. Employment rate, persons 15-74 years, fourth quarter, 1990-2019

Total Men Women
1990 65.5 71.2 59.7
1991 64.8 69.8 59.7
1992 64.4 69.2 59.6
1993 64.6 69.6 59.5
1994 65.5 70.4 60.5
1995 66.9 72.1 61.6
1996 68.4 73.5 63.2
1997 70.1 75.0 65.2
1998 71.0 75.9 66.0
1999 70.9 75.3 66.4
2000 70.7 74.9 66.4
2001 70.8 74.5 67.1
2002 70.1 73.6 66.6
2003 69.4 72.7 66.1
2004 69.3 72.5 66.0
2005 69.4 72.9 65.8
2006 70.0 73.3 66.6
2007 71.4 74.5 68.1
2008 71.0 74.0 67.8
2009 69.2 71.6 66.7
2010 68.8 71.2 66.4
2011 69.0 71.6 66.3
2012 68.7 71.2 66.2
2013 68.4 70.8 65.9
2014 67.9 70.4 65.3
2015 67.3 69.8 64.7
2016 66.6 68.4 64.7
2017 66.7 68.8 64.5
2018 67.6 70.2 64.9
2019 67.9 70.5 65.1

Employment rate 1990-2019

Since the 1990s, each year the number of employed people in Norway has increased, except for the period after the financial crises in 2008 and the drop in the oil prices in 2014. At the same time, in the period 2007-2017 the level of the employment rate has either decreased or been stable. After 2017 the employment rate began to increase again, which means the number of employed people increased as much or more than the growth in the general population.  The employment rate for the population 15-74 years increased 1.1 percentage points during the period 2017-2019. 0.3 percentage points of the increase was from the period 2018-2019. The development in the employment rate for the population 20-64 years has been the same as for those 15-74 years.

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