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This is an archived release.
Employment rising
From December 2010 to March 2011 the number of employed persons rose by 17 000. The unemployment rate in March was 3.3 per cent.
Adjusted for seasonal variations, the Labour force survey (LFS) shows that the number of employed persons increased by 17 000 persons from December 2010 (average November-January) to March 2011 (average February-April). The increase was among persons within the age group 25-74 years.
The unemployment rates for February 2011 (average January-March) have been revised up 0.1 percentage point, ending at 3.2. |
Small changes in unemployment
Adjusted for seasonal variations, the unemployment rate decreased by 0.1 percentage point from December to March. A total of 3.3 per cent of the labour force was unemployed in March. The decrease is within the error margin of the LFS.
In comparison, seasonally-adjusted figures for those registered unemployed with the Labour and Welfare Organisation (NAV) fell by about 7 000.
The labour force is the total of employed and unemployed between 16-74 years of age. From December to March, employment increased by 17 000 and unemployment was reduced by 2 000. This gives an increase in the labour force of 15 000 persons. The coherence between the conceptsUnemployed + Employed = Labour force Labour force + Outside the labour force = Population |
Decrease in unemployment in USA and Europe
Between December 2010 and March 2011, the USA saw a decrease in unemployment of 0.6 percentage points, with the unemployment rate in March ending at 8.8 per cent. In the same period, Germany had a decrease of 0.3 per cent, ending at 6.3 per cent. In France the unemployment rate was reduced by 0.1 percentage point from December to March. A total of 9.5 per cent of the labour force in France was without a job in March. 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