Earnings

Definitions of important concepts and variables:

The basic concept is limited to include cash benefits from the employer to the employee for agreed working hours. Consequently, the statistics do not include benefits in kind, insurance or deductible expense allowances and the like. All concepts are gross earnings, before tax.

Monthly earnings

Monthly earnings are the main term in Statistics Norway's earnings statistics. Monthly earnings includes agreed monthly earnings, irregular supplements and bonuses. Overtime allowances are not included in monthly earnings but presented separately.

Basic earnings

The basic monthly earnings comprise the fixed earnings or agreed earnings (converted to monthly earnings) which are paid whether it is defined as hourly, monthly, 14-day or weekly. Basic monthly earnings relate to the reference period, and are often referred to as regulatory earnings, agreed earnings or fixed basic earnings. Qualification supplements / competence supplements and other fixed personal supplements are included.

Variable additional allowances

Variable additional allowances are compensation in cash related to special tasks or working hours and are given as a calculated average per month for the period 1 January up until and including the reference period. Variable additional allowances include supplements for inconvenient working hours, call-up supplements, shift supplements, offshore supplements and other supplements that come up irregularly. Includes both irregular supplements related to working hours and non-working hours (example of irregular supplement for time not worked time is on-call duty at home).

Bonuses

Bonuses include cash benefits that are often not linked to specific tasks where the payments come unevenly with respect to the period in which they were earned or apply. Examples of which are profit sharing, production surcharges, gratuities, etc. Bonuses are a calculated average per month for the period 1 January up until the reference period.

Payment for overtime work

Payment for overtime work only covers remuneration in cash for work performed that is more than of the agreed working hours, and often include a supplement to the agreed earnings. Overtime pay is a calculated average per month over the period 1 January and up to the reference period. Overtime pay is not included in monthly earnings but presented separately in the statistics.

Overtime hours

Overtime hours only include the hours which are compensated in cash not hours that go to time off. In some industries, it is not uncommon for overtime hours to be reimbursed with both payment and time for time off. In such cases, all hours and cash benefits are reported.

Annual earnings

Annual earnings are a calculated quantity based on 12 months a year. Annual earnings include the three main elements of the monthly earnings: agreed monthly earnings, bonuses and variable additional allowances. Overtime pay is related to work outside ordinary working hours and are not included in the annual earnings. Hence annual earnings as all other categories of earnings exclusively cover compensation in cash. Post-payments are included in the annual earnings calculation. The annual earnings is calculated at an aggregate level per sector and industry and include both full-time and part-time employees. Part-time employees' earnings are converted to full-time earnings (see: full-time equivalents). A full-time equivalent for full-time employees does not constitute the same number of working hours for all employees. Differences may, for example, be due to the extent of shift and shift work.

The average annual earnings are expressed as the sum of the average earnings for all months in one calendar year. The development (profile) of the agreed earnings during the year is determined by the average earnings for each month, while the variable additional allowances and bonus are just the sum paid in the calendar year.

Preliminary annual earnings

Preliminary annual earnings is published simultaneously with monthly earnings in the beginning of February and is valid until mid-March when final figures for annual earnings are published. This statistic is only published on a superior level and is not divided by industry/sector.

For the calculation of preliminary annual earnings, the preliminary version of data for December is used, while the final data version is used for the other months. This is due to lack of final version of data for December at the calculation point.

Simultaneously the table 09786 from National Account is published. There are some differences between the definitions of these two statistics, for example processing of earnings that are paid in one year but earned another year. It means that for example in National Account’s statistic are the earnings corrected by the estimated effect of the delayed salary settlements.

Full-time and part-time

As of 2015, full-time employment is defined as job with a position percentage equal to 100. All jobs that encompass position percentage lower than 100 are considered part-time. By combining information on the percentage of positions and the number of hours in a full-time position, an agreed working time per week is calculated for each job. Most full-time employments have a weekly agreed working time of 37.5 hours.

Agreed working hours

Agreed working hours are defined as agreed working hours per week. No deduction is made for absence due to holiday, illness, leave with or without pay, etc. Agreed working hours are calculated are based the reported number of hours in a full-time position.

Full-time equivalents

To compare earnings between full-time and part-time employees, the earnings of the part-time employees are converted to what they would be if they worked full-time in other words a full-time equivalent. This is done by using the percentage of full-time for each individual job as a conversion factor. The monthly earnings per full-time equivalent for the part-time jobs can then be compared with the monthly earnings for full-time employees.

Deciles and percentiles

Decile 1 is the tenth of all full-time equivalents in the statistical basis with the lowest salary, while Decile 10 includes the tenth with the highest earnings. Decile 10 is further divided into 10 groups, so-called percentiles. The division is from percentile 91 to 100, where percentile 100 is the highest paid percentage in the distribution of monthly earnings.

Gini coefficient

The Gini coefficient is a number between 0 and 1 that measures the degree of inequality in the distribution of wage, where 0 corresponds with perfect equality and 1 corresponds with perfect inequality.

P90/P10

P90/P10 refers to the percentile ratio of the 9th and the 1st decile cut-offs.

Age and gender

The national identity number indicates age and sex. Age is calculated for the 16th of November, the reference period.

Jobs/employment

The unit of analysis in the statistics are jobs (employments) per local unit. The terms "job" and "employment" are used synonymously and are defined as jobs that are compensated in cash. The term includes both main employment and secondary employment. A person (individual) can have several jobs in different enterprises. As for local units several jobs are summed up to one.

Immigration category

Residents are defined as persons registered in the Central Population Register which also includes temporary immigrants with a planned stay in Norway of six months or more. Non-residents are defined as persons registered in the Central Population Register with a planned stay in Norway of less than six months. Non-residents include persons with a temporary social security number (D-number) or who are registered as emigrants but work in Norway.

Immigrants are defined as persons who were born abroad, have foreign-born parents and grandparents and who have immigrated to Norway. Information on immigration status and country background is obtained from registers in Statistics Norway.

Country background

For people born abroad, ‘country background’ (with a few exceptions) is the country of birth. For persons born in Norway, it is the parents' country of birth. In cases where the parents have different countries of birth, the mother's country of birth defines 'country background'. If the person himself or one of the parents is not born abroad, the country background is obtained from the first foreign-born relation in the order: grandmother, grandfather, grandmother, grandfather. For persons who have a temporary social security number (D-number), we only have information about citizenship.

Classification of education

Education level is acquired from the National Education Database (NUDB - see the variablelist for education (only in Norwegian)) and is a classification according to the length of the education in accordance with the Norwegian standard for education classification (C617) (PDF)

As of 2011, results from the survey on education completed abroad in NUDB are included. This survey led to the proportion unspecified in the population's highest level of education being reduced from about 43 per cent to 20 per cent. This is reflected in the wage statistics from 2012. More information about the survey: The population's level of education, after the survey on education completed abroad

Apprentices

An apprentice is a person who has signed a contract with an employer and is associated with work in a specific company or a training office and gets his apprenticeship there. In most cases this encompasses a period of two years - one year of training and one year of productive work. Pupils in vocational training at school are also defined as apprentices. Vocational training in schools is an offer for applicants who have not received an apprenticeship.

Sector

Sector is based on Classification of Institutional sector and derived from the Business and Enterprise Register (VoF). The following three divisions are used in the tables:

1. Central government: includes the state and social security administration and Central government health trusts are included.
2. Municipal government: includes municipal and county municipal administration and covers activities such as road, school, culture, etc.
3. Private sector and public enterprises: Cover private business activities and publicly controlled enterprises that are not part of the central or local government. Publicly controlled enterprises here include the state's business operations as well as enterprises where the public sector controls more than 50 per cent of the share capital. Examples of such enterprises as of March 2020: the state's business operations (the Norwegian Mapping Authority, the regional hospital pharmacies, etc.), state-owned joint stock companies, etc. (Equinor, Statnett, Statkraft, Mesta, Vinmonopolet, Telenor, etc.), municipal enterprises with unlimited liability (including municipal enterprises (KS) and intermunicipal enterprises (IKF)), municipally owned joint stock companies, etc., Norges Bank, government lending institutions etc.

• Industry is coded according to the Standard for industry classification (SN2007).

• Occupation is coded according to the Standard for occupational classification (STYRK-2008).

• Sector is coded according to Standard for institutional sector classification

• Distribution by county and municipality follows county and municipality lists per 1st in the middle month of a given quarter

• National Education Database (NUDB), compliance with Norwegian standard for education classification (C617) (PDF)