Weekly Bulletin issue no. 33, 1997 <sti>Stikktittel

Moderate decline in the number of unemployed

Employment in Norway increased by 67,000 last year, while the number of unemployed was reduced by 8,000. A total of 107,000 people were without work in the second quarter of this year. They accounted for 4.6 per cent of the workforce, against 5.1 per cent during the same quarter last year, according to new figures from Statistics Norway's Labour Force Survey.

The percentage of employed people in the population (16 to 74 years of age) was 73.1 per cent in the second quarter of this year, compared to 71.4 per cent during the same quarter last year. Labour force participation increased by 1.8 percentage points for women and 1.5 percentage points for men. The increase applied to all groups with the exception of persons over the age of 66. The biggest increase was among people under 30.

Employment rose in most industries. The strongest growth was in public administration, business services and building and construction, although the number of jobs in manufacturing and the wholesale and retail trade also increased considerably. Employment in agriculture and forestry dropped, however.

New Statistics

Labour Force Survey, 2nd quarter 1997.
Statistics are issued quarterly in the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics. Detailed figures are published in the basic tables from the Labour Force Survey. More information: Ole Sandvik, tel. +47 21 09 45 77, e-mail: osa@ssb.no or Inger Håland, tel. +47 21 09 47 80, e-mail: iha@ssb.no.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 33, 1997