Content
Published:
This is an archived release.
Decrease in unemployment
A total of 3.2 per cent of the labour force was unemployed in January 2011; a decrease of 0.3 percentage points since October 2010.
Adjusted for seasonal variations, the Labour force survey (LFS) shows that the number of unemployed persons decreased by 7 000 persons from October 2010 (average September-November) to January 2011 (average December-February). The decrease was among persons within the age group 25-74 years.
The unemployment rates for December (average November-January) have been revised down 0.1 percentage point, ending at 3.3 per cent. |
In comparison, seasonally-adjusted figures for those registered unemployed with the Labour and Welfare Organisation (NAV) fell by about 3 000. These figures have also been adjusted for seasonal variations.
Small changes in employment
Adjusted for seasonal variations, the number of employed persons increased by 9 000 from October to January, the decrease is within the error margin of the LFS, but is in line with long-term growth within employment in the latter year. Because of an even larger increase in the population rate, there is nevertheless a decrease in the employment rate.
The labour force is the total of employed and unemployed between 16-74 years of age. From October to January, employment increased by 9 000 and unemployment was reduced by 7 000. This gives an increase in the labour force of 2 000 persons. The coherence between the conceptsUnemployed + Employed = Labour force Labour force + Outside the labour force = Population |
Decrease in unemployment in USA
Between October and January, the USA saw a decrease in unemployment of 0.7 percentage points, with the unemployment rate in January ending at 9.0 per cent. In the same period, Denmark had an increase of 0.5 per cent, ending at 8.2 per cent. In the EU-15, the unemployment rate was reduced by 0.2 percentage points from October to January. A total of 9.4 per cent of the labour force in the EU-15 was without a job in January. All figures refer to seasonally-adjusted data from Eurostat .
Employment and unemployment figures include permanent residentsThe LFS only includes persons who are registered as residents in the population register. Persons working in Norway who are not registered as permanent residents or who are planning to stay for less than six months are not included in the employment figure in the LFS. If these people lose their job, it does not count as a fall in employment or a rise in unemployment. In national accounts figures (NR), employed non-residents are included in the employment figure as long as they work in an establishment in Norway. If employment decreases in this group it will count as a fall in employment in NR. Statistics Norway publishes separate figures for all registered non-residents once a year. See short-term immigrants . |
Uncertain figuresThe purpose of making seasonal adjustments is to describe the development over the last year, corrected for seasonal variations. In order to reduce uncertainty, the published series are three-month moving averages of the seasonally-adjusted figures. However, uncertainty means that sampling errors must be considered when interpreting the figures from the LFS. We normally compare the latest non-overlapping three-month periods. An overview of sampling errors in the LFS can be found in “ About the statistics ”, chapter 5, section 3. Quarterly LFS figures, not seasonally adjusted, are presented in a separate article . |
RevisionsThe complete time series is re-estimated each month, and this may cause some adjustments of previously published figures. See Revisions for more information . Interviews that arrive late are included in the LFS the following month. This applies for the first two months of every quarter. |
Tables:
The statistics is published with Labour force survey.
Contact
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Arbeidsmarked og lønn
E-mail: arbeidsmarked@ssb.no
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Erik Herstad Horgen
E-mail: erik.horgen@ssb.no
tel.: (+47) 93 08 68 62