More employed people in all counties except for Finnmark

The number of employed people in Norway increased by 47,800 or 2.6 per cent from fourth quarter 1996 to fourth quarter 1997. The largest increase was in Østfold, with 4.2 per cent, while Finnmark had a decline of 1.5 per cent. All other counties had an increase in the number of people in work.

Finnmark is experiencing a simultaneous decline in employees and population as people move out of the county. Taking this into consideration, the figures nevertheless show that the percentage of the population who are employees (employee rate) has also increased somewhat in recent years in Finnmark. The increase in the employee rate for the entire country was 1.3 per cent. In Finnmark the increase was at least 0.1 percentage point, while Østfold and Telemark had the largest increase, with 1.9 percentage points.

The largest percentage increase in male and female employees was in Østfold, with 4.6 and 3.8 per cent. For the entire country the increase was 3.1 per cent for men and 2.1 per cent for women. In all counties with the exception of Finnmark, we find the largest percentage-wise increase among men employees.

Finnmark was the only county with a decline in the number of people employed last year. The decline was the largest among women employees. Troms also had a decline in women employees. Sogn og Fjordane and Troms were the counties with the lowest increase in the number of people employed, with 0.5 and 0.9 per cent.

New Statistics

Employee statistics by municipality of residence, 4th quarter 1997.
The statistics are published annually in the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics and are also available broken down by municipality in Official Statistics of Norway (NOS) Regional Statistics. For more information, contact: zeleke.kebede@ssb.no, tel. +47 21 09 47 92, or inge.aukrust@ssb.no, tel. +47 21 09 47 81.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 19, 1998