Employment, register-based

Employed persons are persons between 15-74 years of age who performed work for pay or profit for at least one hour in the reference week, or who were temporarily absent from work because of illness, holidays etc. Conscripts are classified as employed persons. Persons engaged by government measures to promote employment are also included if they receive wages. This follows recommendations from the International Labour Organization, ILO.

The age is given in complete years at the end of the year.

If employed persons have more than one employment in the reference week, one is determined as the most important. Information on individuals’ work- and business related variables comes from the main employment.

Person-related variables

The features residence, gender and age are collected from the National Registry.

Information about residence is collected at the end of the reference week. For the period 2000-2014 this implies the 3^rd week of November. From 2015 onwards residence is collected at the end of the given statistical month.

Information about age is collected at the end of the year for the period 2000-2005. In 2006 the minimum age to be counted as employed was lowered from 16 to 15 years, in accordance with international recommendations. Also, the definition of age was changed from age at the end of the year to age at the end of the reference week. From 2015 onwards age is collected at the 16^th of November.

Employment-related variables

From 2015 onwards

Working hours are calculated using the number of hours per week that constitute a full-time position, the percentage of the position and the number of paid hours.

Contractual percentage of full-time equivalent

Contractual percentage of full-time equivalent is what you have agreed to work according to your contract of employment. The employer shall not consider additional work, overtime or different types of absence from work or if the hours have been paid or not. The information on contractual percentage of full-time equivalent is based on what is reported to the a-ordningen.

For persons that are paid by the hour without contractual working hours per week, e.g. on-call temporary workers, the employer can report 0 as contractual percentage of full-time equivalent. Statistics Norway will then calculate contractual percentage of full-time equivalent from what is reported as paid hours and number of hours that corresponds to a 100 per cent position in the moth of reporting.

Contractual working hours per week

By combining information regarding contractual percentage of full-time equivalent and number of hours per week in a full position, contractual working hours per week is calculated for each employment (job) and wage earner (person).

The number of hours in a full position is the number of working hours that makes a full position in a similar employment. Unpaid lunchbreaks are withdrawn, but it is not adjusted for potential additional work, overtime or different types of absence from work.

Contractual full-time/part-time

Full time is when the contractual percentage of full-time equivalent equals 100 or more. Part-time is when the contractual percentage of full-time equivalent is less than 100.

Working time arrangement

A working time arrangement is an agreement concerning when in the day the work will be performed and any variations in this arrangement over a period of time. The variable included in the statistics describes whether the work is carried out as shift and rotational work.

It is mandatory for employers to provide information about the working time arrangement for all ordinary and maritime employment to a-ordningen. Employed persons without said employment types are registered with unspecified working time arrangement in the statistics. This is because it is voluntary for employers to provide information on working time arrangements for the employment type "Freelancers, contractors and fee recipients" (skatteetaten.no). In addition, some employees are defined from data sources other than a-ordningen. Furthermore, Statistics Norway does not have information regarding working time arrangements for self-employed persons.

Please see the a-melding guide for more information about working time arrangements (skatteetaten.no).

Type of appointment

Type of appointment denotes whether the employee is employed on a permanent or temporary basis. If the employee has a permanent position, the employment relationship is continuous and not time-limited. If the employment is temporary, the employment relationship is determined for a limited period or for a specific assignment, and this must be specified in the contract.

As of 2021, it became mandatory for employers to provide information about type of appointment, either permanent or temporary, for ordinary and maritime employments to a-ordningen. Employed persons without said employment types are registered with unspecified working time arrangement in the statistics. This is because it is voluntary for employers to provide information on type of appointment for the employment type "Freelancers, contractors and fee recipients" (skatteetaten.no). In addition, some employees are defined from data sources other than a-ordningen. Furthermore, Statistics Norway does not have information regarding type of appointment for self-employed persons.

Please see the a-melding guide for more information about type of appointment (skatteetaten.no).

Occupational code

In a-ordningen occupational code is also delivered for employees in the central government. Previously, the position percentage for this group had to be calculated using statistical methods based on other sources of data.

From 2000-2014

Working hours is the scheduled working hours per week divided into three intervals: 1-19 hours per week, 20-29 hours, and 30 hours per week and above. For 90 per cent of the employed persons, information is obtained from the Ee-register. For those classified as employed persons on the basis of information from The Register of End of the Year Certificates (as one of the sources), the size of the annual income is used to calculate weekly hours of work. The working hours for self-employed persons are the average working hours per week, calculated on the basis of entrepreneurial income and information from the Labour Force Survey, LFS.

For employed persons in the Ee-register, the occupational code is supplied by the employer, or encoded from the occupational title. For other employed persons, the occupational distribution is estimated using statistical methods and other sources of data.

Employer-related variables

The information about the municipality of work and industry is obtained from the Central Register of Business Establishments and Enterprises (CRE) and uses information on the enterprise where people work. For self-employed who are not related to either an enterprise or an establishment, information on residency, education and the independent enterprise of family members are used to decide the necessary variables. The work place for seafarers and employees in the National defence is set equal to the municipality of residence.

Information about the sector is based on the institutional sector classification and is retrieved from the CRE.

The industrial classification is in accordance with the revised Standard Industrial Classification (NOS D 383), which is based on the EU-standard of NACE Rev. 2.

The occupational classification is in accordance with Standard Classification of Occupations (STYRK 2008), which is based on ISCO 08 (COM).

The educational classification is in accordance with the Norwegian Standard Classification of Education Revised 2000 (NOS C 617).

Breakdown by municipality is in accordance with the list of municipalities as of January 1^st in the production year (which is the following year when the data was gathered).

The sector classification is in accordance with the Classification of Institutional Sector.