Business statistics

Enterprise

Until and including year 2021, the enterprise is defined as the legal entity in this statistics.

From year 2022, the enterprise is defined as the smallest combination of legal units that is an organizational unit producing goods or services, which benefits from a certain degree of autonomy in decision-making, especially for the allocation of its current resources. An enterprise carries out one or more activities at one or more locations. An enterprise may be a sole legal unit.

Legal units

Legal units are recognised by law or by society, independently of the persons or institutions that own them. The characteristics of a legal unit are the following: they own assets, they incur liabilities and they enter into transactions with other entities (contracts).

Legal units include:

• legal persons whose existence is recognised by law, independently of the individuals or institutions which may own them, or are members of them,

• natural persons who are engaged in an economic activity in their own right.

Local kind-of-activity unit (LKAU)

Defined as a locally delimited functional unit that mainly performs activities within a specific industry group.

Location

The location is in accordance with the municipal divisions as of 1 January in the reference year. In some industries, an enterprise can operate in several municipalities or counties without being divided into several KAUs. In such cases, the enterprise’s collective activity is registered under the enterprise’s business address.

Owners without fixed salary who work in the enterprise daily

Owners include owners of sole proprietorships, general partnerships and shared liability companies, as well as family members without a fixed salary who work in the enterprise on a daily basis and such like. Co-owners in shareholder groups and cooperatives who are paid to work in the enterprise are not included. Neither are family members of owners of sole proprietorships, general partnerships or shared liability companies if they have a fixed salary.

Employees

The number of employees is taken from ‘a-ordningen’ dating back to 2015. An employee is someone who works for an employer and earns a wage/salary or other remuneration. The employer has an obligation to submit monthly reporting figures for all employees. Exceptions apply to certain types of employment where the employer does not have the usual authority to issue instructions vis-à-vis an employee. In the figures on employees, all employment in a unit during the year is included. Checks are made to ensure that each person can have only one job in the same enterprise, but can be registered as an employee in several enterprises at the same time.

The number of employees shown in the business statistics represents an annual average.

Employment

The employment figure is made up of owners and employees. Those with more than one job may be counted in more than one industry. The employment figures in the business statistics show an annual average of the number in employment.

In the register-based employment statistics, each person is only counted in their main job. However, in the business statistics, the same person can have more than one job at the same time. The register-based employment statistics are based on persons employed, while the business statistics provide information on the KAUs and enterprises that make up the population. The number of persons employed in the business statistics will therefore not be directly comparable with the number of persons employed in other statistics.

Contracted workers from temporary employment agencies are not included in the employment figures. Contracted construction workers from temporary employment agencies in Norway are included in the figures for industry group 78.200 – Temporary employment agency activities. Contracted workers from foreign employment agencies are not included in the statistics.

Part-time employee

Part-time employees are employees who has contracted less than 30 workinghours per week.

Full-time equivalent (FTE)

FTE refers to the unit of measurement equivalent to a full-time employee, and the figures show the annual FTE in the enterprise. This figure corresponds to the number of employees converted to the number of FTEs.

Turnover

The turnover is defined as an enterprise’s annual sales revenue net of all government grants and profits from the sale of assets. VAT is not included in the turnover. From year 2022, special government taxes on sales are subtracted from the turnover. For the industry classification sections P and Q, government grants reported in the income statement under the heading “3400” are considered market production and, therefore, included in the turnover.

Production value

The production value is defined as turnover adjusted for changes in stocks of finished goods, goods in process and goods and services purchased for resale.

From year 2022 special government taxes on sales are subtracted from the turnover and hence, also from the production value.

Intermediate consumption

Value of the goods and services consumed as inputs in the production process, excluding fixed assets whose consumption is recorded as consumption of fixed capital. Depreciation of fixed assets are not included

Value added at factor cost

Value added at factor cost is defined as the Production value minus Intermediate consumption. Public subsidiaries are added and special taxes are subracted

Labour costs

Labour costs include wages, holiday pay, fees etc., employers’ National Insurance contributions, reportable pension costs and other personnel costs. Labour costs do not include remuneration to owners of sole proprietorships or general partnerships, or to family members without a fixed salary.

Wages

Wages includes salaries, holiday pay, fees etc. Employers’ National Insurance contributions, reportable pension costs and other personnel costs are not included.

Social security costs

Social security costs includes employers’ National Insurance contributions, reportable pension costs and other personnel costs.

Gross operating profit

The gross operating profit is the sum of the value added (at factor prices) minus labour costs.

Cost of temporary workers

Cost of temporary workers includes payments to temporary employment agencies and similar organisations for personnel provided by them. Only payments for personnel that are not related to the performance of a particular industrial or non-industrial service are included.

Total purchase of goods and services

The total purchase of goods and services includes the value of all goods and services that are purchased during the course of the year for resale, for use in the enterprises' own production process or for storage. The procurement of tangible fixed assets is not included in these figures.

Purchase of goods for resale

The purchase of goods for resale is defined as the value of all goods purchased by the enterprise for resale without further processing.

Gross investments

Gross investments are the total value of new capital goods such as buildings and plant, machinery, tools, implements, software, vehicles (except for personal use), both new and used. Improvements are added. Investment figures are minus incoming value added tax.

Building sites are included in the definition from 2017. Financial leasing is included from 2019.

The implementation of IFRS16 makes the Gross Investments not directly comparable to earlier years. Units, having operational leasing agreements, should register the Capital goods on the balance sheet. It will in practice turn the arrangement from operational leasing to fiancial leasing and should therefore be included in the Gross investments.

The industry classification is in accordance with the Norwegian Standard Industrial Classification (SIC 2007) used in Statistics Norway, which is based on the EU Standard NACE Rev. 2 and the United Nation’s International Standard Industrial Classification of all Economic Activities (ISIC), Rev. 4.

See Statistics Norway’s Standard Industrial Classification for a description of the different industries.

Earlier time series with figures up to the end of 2008 are published in accordance with SIC2002 (based on the EU’s standard NACE Rev. 1.) Here you can find information on the transition to a new industry standard.