Working life and measures to curb the pandemic – What has happened since the 12th of March 2020?”

The consequences of the control measures were immediate and could be measured in the labour market statistics already in March 2020. Of all areas in Norwegian working life that met the greatest consequences, it was workplaces that were geared towards contact between people who were hit the hardest. Typical industries were accommodation and food service activities, administrative and support service activities and arts, entertainment activities and other personal services, but also parts of transportation and storage were affected by the requirements set in the regulations. Many of the people who had jobs in these industries were often in jobs that required less education and they were predominantly younger people.

In comparison with previous years of statistics, we have examined how different the labour market was in November 2020 compared with November in previous years. By November 2020, there were far more people unemployed and there was also an increase in the number of people who took out pensions, but the focus of the change was a rise in unemployment. The typical changes in the labour market also changed character compared to previous years. Especially within the public sector, public administration, defence, social insurance and health and social services, there was a greater tendency to change jobs within the industries. Non-residents are people with shorter stays, and there were a lot fewer of these in the labour market in November 2020 than at the corresponding month in 2019. In general, there were more people that were unemployed or on labour market measures in November 2020.

In the report, we also look at overall features of the development month by month in 2020. The most important feature is that after the first shutdown, a significant recovery began during the summer. This positive development lasted until late autumn 2020 when the trend again turned towards April 2021, when an apparent improvement seemed to take place. A trend that recent statistics for August 2021 confirm. When we follow identical jobs in the period November 2019 to March 2020 and compare with the same group from previous years, we find more people out of a job, and many who have changed jobs. Jobs that were identical throughout the year were affected by reduced working hours during 2020 and especially from March 2020 until the summer. We also discuss how the calculation of wages and wage growth are affected by the changes described earlier in the report. A significant number of jobs that disappeared from working life from March 2020 were lower paid than average. This contributed to the measuring of high wage growth, since those who remained had higher earnings than those who left.

Finally, we turn our attention to the question: How would the development have been without a pandemic? This is done as an attempt to illustrate overall consequences of the infection control measures, which were significant for the labour market from March 2020 until May 2021.