Employed short-term immigrants, 2009, 4th quarter

Statistics are published for the national and county level.

The statistics are published annually. Publication normally takes place in mid-June, referring to the situation in the fourth quarter of the previous year.

Not relevant

Raw data files and files documenting corrections in the raw data, are permanently stored.

The purpose of the statistics is to describe the employment situation for persons not registered as residents, i.e. persons who intend to stay in Norway for a short period.

Important users of labour market statistics have expressed the need for data on the inflow of persons from the EU countries in Eastern Europe arriving in Norway for employment. The regular labour market statistics capture this inflow in cases where persons move to Norway for a period of more than six months and are employed by a Norwegian employer. However, persons who move to Norway for shorter periods, as individual employees, self-employed, or are employed by a foreign employer selling their services in Norway, are not included. The statistics on employment and unemployment among short term immigrants is intended to provide better data on inflows not captured in the regular labour market statistics. Note that these inflows are to some extent included in other statistics, notably the National Accounts.

The Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion have financed the development of the statistics. The statistics are part of a larger project aimed at developing a more complete description of short term labour immigration to Norway.

Employment statistics for non-residents were first published in June 2005, as part of the ordinary Registerbased Employment Statistics . Separate statistics on employment and unemployment among non-residents were first published in June 2006.

New self-employed persons were first published in June 2009, with figures from 2006-2008.

Important users include the labour market authorities and the public administration in general, trade unions and employers' federations, private enterprises, researchers, and the media.

Not relevant

Other statistics from Statistics Norway As explained above, the statistics on employment and unemployment among short term immigrants only includes persons registered as non-residents. Conversely, the ordinary Register-based Employment Statistics only includes registered residents. This is in accordance with recommendations from the International Labour Organisation. Hence, if a person changes residency status, the statistics where this person is included will also change.

Statistics on employment among immigrants are published annually. This statistics is based on the ordinary Register-based Employment Statistics, and only includes immigrants that are registered residents.

Statistics Norway also publishes separate register-based statistics on employment of health care personnel . This statistics contains figures for employed health care personnel without Norwegian citizenship, and includes short term immigrants in this group.

The Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the National Accounts (NA) also give statistics on employment and unemployment. The LFS only includes registered residents. The NA figures merge data from many sources, including the LFS, the EE-register, and the End of the Year Certificate Register. In the NA, all persons employed in a Norwegian establishment are included, regardless of residency status.

The aim of the project Nordic commuter map 2001 is to describe the trans-border labour market in the Nordic region. Several reports have been published from this project, including reports on commuters between Norway and Sweden. To be counted as a commuter from Sweden to Norway, a person must be a resident of Sweden and have his or her main employment in Norway.

Work permits for citizens of new EU member states from the Directorate of Immigration The Norwegian Directorate of Immigration publishes monthly statistics on the number of new and currently valid work permits granted to citizens of EU member states in Eastern Europa (pluss Malta og Cyprus). These figures will not be comparable to the statistics on employment and unemployment among short term immigrants, for several reasons:

• Reference periods are different: Persons that have received a permit may not yet have arrived in Norway, and is therefore not included in the statistics on employment and unemployment among short term immigrants. Furthermore, permits are valid for longer time periods. Persons are not necessarily working constantly in Norway, and permit holders may be outside Norway during the reference week used by Statistics Norway, and are therefore excluded from the statistics on employment and unemployment among short term immigrants.
• The figures on permits granted include self-employed persons working in Norway for more than three months. As explained above, self-employed are not included in the statistics on employment and unemployment among short term immigrants.
• Failure on the part of employers to report accurately to the registers may lead to under-counting in the statistics on employment and unemployment among short term immigrants. This problem is described in more detail in section 5.1. above.
• Persons holding work permits valid for more than six months may be directly classified as residents in the Central Population Register, and therefore excluded from the statistics on employment and unemployment among short term immigrants.
• For various reasons, persons who are granted a work permit may choose not to use it. The number of work permits would then be larger than the number of immigrants. The Directorate for Immigration believes most permits are being used.
• The figures from the Directorate for Immigration do not include persons coming to work in Norway as employees of a foreign enterprise for a period of less than three months. These persons are included in the statistics on employment and unemployment among short term immigrants.

Among these reasons for discrepancies between the two statistics, only the last will lead to the numbers reported in the statistics on employment and unemployment among short term immigrants being higher than the numbers reported by the Directorate of Immigration. The other reasons all lead to the Directorate of Immigration's figures being higher.

The Statistics Act of 16 June 1989, section 3-2 (Administrative registers).

Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 of 25 June 1996 on the European System of National and Regional Accounts in the Community.

The statistics on employment and unemployment among short term immigrants cover all persons aged 15-74 who are either employed or registered as unemployed in Norway, and who are registered as "non-resident" in the Central Population Register.

Persons arriving in Norway for a period of more than six months are to be registered as "resident" in the Central Population Register. Persons staying in Norway for a period of less than six months, and persons not staying in Norway but commuting to Norway for work on a daily basis, are registered as "non-resident". The statistics cover the latter two groups.

Short-term immigrants during the whole year

In addition to the quarterly figures based on a reference week in November, figures with the whole year as the reference period are also produced, for instance in order to include seasonal workers. The number of short-term immigrants then increased from 75 000 (fourth quarter of 2009) to 135 000 (2009 - the whole year). These and more figures can be found in the StatBank .

New self-employed persons
It is not possible to give figures on how many self-employed persons work in Norway. However, we can provide figures on new self-employed persons in a specific year. Self-employed persons were first published in June 2009, with figures from 2006-2008.

The statistics are based on data from several administrative registers. The most important registers for employment data are (Norwegian names of registers in parentheses):

-The Central Register on Employers and Employees (Arbeidstaker-/Arbeidsgiverregisteret)
-End of the Year Certificate Register (Lønns- og trekkoppgaveregisteret)
-Register of persons and employment contracts from the Central Office - Foreign Tax Affairs (Sentralskattekontoret for utenlandssaker)
-The Central Coordinating Register for Legal Entities (Enhetsregisteret)
-The Central Register of Establishments and Enterprises (Bedrifts- og Foretaksregisteret)

For unemployment data, the most important register is the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Adiministration's Job applicant register, ARENA (NAVs Arbeidssøkerregister ARENA).

The Central Register on Employers and Employees (the EE-register) is linked to the Norwegian public health insurance system. Employers are required to register their employees with the EE-register if the employees perform their work in Norway or on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (i.e. in the North Sea). This requirement applies regardless of whether the enterprise is registered as a legal entity in Norway or not, and regardless of the residency status of the employees. It also applies regardless of the employee’s tax liability to Norway. Hence, both short term immigrants arriving to seek work individually (in Norwegian enterprises) and those arriving as employees of a foreign enterprise undertaking activities in Norway are registered. However, there are exemptions:

*Employment for a period of less than seven days, or for less than four hours per week, is exempt from registration.

*There must be a relationship of employment with an enterprise. Self-employed persons are not registered, nor are free-lancers and board members who are not considered as employees of the enterprise.

*Employees of foreign enterprises carrying out time-limited contracts in building and construction and in the off-shore industry (i.e. in the North Sea) are exempt from registration.

*Employees of foreign enterprises within transportation that undertake work in Norway (i.e. drivers of trucks and buses going to and from Norway) are exempt from registration. Foreign workers in Norway for short business trips, or as participants in seminars and conferences, are exempt from registration.

The End of the Year Certificate Register is the Norwegian Tax Directorate's register of wage sums. All employers are required to report paid wages to the Tax Directorate. Reporting is done at the establishment level. There is to be one report for each contract of employment, each year. The register contains information about all employments registered with the EE-register, but in addition, the End of the Year Certificate Register has information about the shorter employment spells (less than seven days or four weekly working hours) not registered with the EE-register. The End of the Year Certificate Register should contain information about all persons coming to Norway to work for Norwegian or foreign enterprises, but does not contain information about self-employed persons.

The Central Office - Foreign Tax Affairs (COFTA)
Businesses and public bodies must provide information unsolicited to the tax authorities regarding contracts or subcontracts carried out on sites for building and assembly work in Norway, or on a site that is under the client’s control in Norway, or on the Norwegian Continental Shelf when the contractor is an enterprise domiciled abroad, or a person domiciled abroad.

The client must provide information about the contractor and about employees used to carry out the assignment.

The contractor is also obliged to provide information about its own employees used to carry out the assignment.

Businesses and public bodies that award contracts to foreign contractors are obliged to provide information pursuant to the Tax Assessment Act section 6-10. Both Norwegian and foreign businesses are obliged to provide information. Private individuals who are not self-employed/engaged in business activity do not have such an obligation pursuant to section 6-10 of the Tax Assessment Act.

The Central Coordinating Register for Legal Entities and the Central Register of Establishments and Enterprises contain information about the enterprises (where the employees work).

The Register of Job Seekers (ARENA) is maintained by the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Adiministration. It includes all job seekers in Norway, i.e. registered totally and partly unemployed, participants in labour market measures, and occupationally handicapped. Information about job seekers is recorded when they register at a local office of the Norwegian Public Employment Service. In the statistics on employment and unemployment among short term immigrants, only totally unemployed are counted as unemployed.

The statistics on employment and unemployment among short term immigrants is a full count.

The Central Register on Employers and Employees (the EE-register)
Statistics Norway receives data files with changes in the EE-register from the National Insurance Administration on a weekly basis. A complete copy of the register is made annually.

The End of the Year Certificate register
Statistics Norway receives data from the End of the Year Certificate Register twice a year: Preliminary data in March and final data in May. The May data are used for the statistics on employment and unemployment among short term immigrants.

The Central Office - Foreign Tax Affairs (COFTA)
Data are transferred weekly from the COFTA to Statistics Norway. Additionally, update files are made when necessary, about twice every year. Currently, the update files are used for the statistics on employment and unemployment among short term immigrants.

The Central Coordinating Register for Legal Entities and the Central Register of Establishments and Enterprises
The Central Register of Establishments and Enterprises is maintained by Statistics Norway.

The Register of Job Seekers (ARENA)
Statistics Norway receives monthly data files on registered unemployed and participants in labour market measures from the Public Employment Service.

Checks and revision of the central registers are undertaken as follows:

The Central Register on Employers and Employees (the EE-register)
Up to 2005, the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV) carried out an annual review of data in the EE-register that was based on manual (i.e. non-electronic) reporting from employers. These employers were sent lists of all persons registered as their employees, and asked to confirm that the employment was still active. From 2005, the National Insurance Service only sends such lists to employers if it has indications of errors or omissions in reporting during the course of the year. For employers reporting electronically, data on employees are sent automatically from the enterprise's payroll system. The National Insurance Service assumes quality of this data is sufficient, and therefore does not undertake an annual revision of data from these employers.

Statistics Norway verifies that enterprises consisting of more than one establishment has separate identification numbers for each establishment, and that employees are linked correctly to the different establishments. Errors are corrected directly in the data files, and the enterprise is notified via the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration, so that data in the register can be corrected. Furthermore, Statistics Norway runs checks of the EE-register against the Central Coordinating Register for Legal Entities, the End of the Year Certificate Register, the Register of Job Seekers, and other data sources.

The End of the Year Certificate register
Revision of the End of the Year Certificate Register is conducted in several steps. The employers carry out the first revision before the material is sent to the Norwegian Tax Administration. The Tax Administration then carries out controls both locally at the chief cashier's office and centrally at the Directorate of Taxes. The statistics are also controlled at Statistics Norway, where a quality check of the data on institutional sector and industry is the most extensive one.

The Central Office - Foreign Tax Affairs (COFTA)
COFTA sends lists of current employment relationships to all employers registered with COFTA, including employers abroad. Lists are sent once or twice a year, and employers are asked to verify and update the lists.

There are indications that employers do not always notify COFTA when employment in Norway ends. A number of employees have been in COFTA's register for a long time, despite the fact that COFTA is intended for time-limited contracts in construction and in the off-shore industry. Hence, we have chosen to exclude persons registered with COFTA but without any record of paid wages in the End of the Year Certificate Register. However, there are also cases where employers have neglected sending information about paid wages to the End of the Year Certificate Register. We have therefore established a procedure to identify such cases and count as employed the persons affected.

The Register of Job Seekers (ARENA)
There is an ongoing check of consistency between aggregate numbers on unemployment from Statistics Norway and the Public Employment Service.

Immigrants are classified by world region according to place of birth.

Not relevant

Not relevant

Statistics on employment and unemployment among short term immigrants were first published in June 2005, as part of the ordinary Registerbased Employment Statistics .

Revised figures

Fourth quarter of 2003 and 2004:

Separate statistics on employment and unemployment among non-residents were first published in June 2006. At the same time, older data were revised, with an increase in the number of non-resident employees of 3,674 persons in the fourth quarter of 2003 and 4,857 persons in the fourte quarter of 2004. The current statistics should therefore not be compared to older publications in Today's statistics or to the Report 2006/4.

Fourth quarter of 2008:

The figures for the fourth quarter for 2008, published in June 2009, are revised. The number of short-term immigrants therefore increased by 3 117 persons (4 per cent) in the fourth quarter of 2008.

New industry classification

The figures for the fourth quarter of 2009 (and fourth quarter of 2008) are produced according to the new industry classification. Compared with figures published with the old industry classification for 2008 and previous years, there will be a break in the time series for figures by industry. Here is an article presenting general information about the new Norwegian industry classification .