Statistics Norway

Division for labour market and wage statistics

Statistisk sentralbyå, Postboks 8131 Dep., NO-0033 Oslo, NORWAY

For Short Term statistics(STS) on employed persons, Statistics Norway has no separate data collection.

Norway is in a favourable position by having labour accounts compilation integrated with the national accounts. The basis of our STS-statistics on employment is the Norwegian quarterly National Account (QNA) figures of employment in market activities (not general government and non-profit institutions) in order to get the best and most consistent picture of the Norwegian economy. The industry groups in these QNA figures are not detailed enough for all the STS requirements. We utilize quarterly register based employee statistics by detailed industry in order to break the QNA figures down to the industry groups needed for STS.

In the registerbased employee statistics the population is all employees aged 15-74 residing in Norway and registered in the A Scheme (a-ordningen) register classified as ordinary and maritime jobs in market activities during reference weeks. The Reference week is the week in the middle month of the Quarter containing the 16^th day of the month. It is the main job in the middle month of the quarter that is counted with coresponding industry.

Under the A Scheme Act, the reporting duty an employer occurs from 2015 for all his employees with payroll or expenditure allowance above 1000 Norwegian kroner per year. Before 2015 the Employee register was the corresponding source, and the population was limited to employees having a job relation scheduled to more than four hours a week and lasting more than six days. The Employee register was based on mandatory change-notification from employers (reporting unit) when hiring or firing to the National Insurance Service (NIS) for the public sick pay scheme.

The industrial classification is in accordance with the Norwegian Standard Industrial Classification 2007 (NOS D 383), which is based on the EU-standard of NACE Rev. 2.

All market activities (not general government and non-profit institutions)  which are listed in sections B to F, H to N, P to S and divisions 45, 46 and 47 of NACE Rev. 2.

Two basic types of information are recorded in the quarterly national accounts (QNA): flows and stocks. Flows refer to actions and effects of events that take place within a given period of time, for example total hours worked in an industry in a quarter. Stocks refer to positions at a certain point of time, for example the average number of employed persons in a quarter. Employed persons in the QNA are the number of persons employed (employees and self-employed) with resident producers. Persons employed include persons employed part-time, persons in military or civil services as conscripts, and persons temporary on leave due to sickness, vacation, permission etc. Employees are employed persons who, by agreement, work for another institutional unit and receive a remuneration recorded as compensation of employees. Owners of corporations (joint-stock companies etc.) are counted as employees if they work in these enterprises.

Self-employed persons are persons who are sole owners, or joint owners, of the unincorporated enterprises in which they work. Family workers without remuneration in contract, and working in an enterprise owned by another family member, are recorded as self-employed.

For the purpose of the STS- statistics, employees in the register based employee statistics are limited to registered residents aged 15 to 74 in private sector (general government and non-profit institutions excluded).

For the decomposition method, employees from our register based employee statistics are utilized. The main register in the statistics is the A Scheme (a-ordningen) register. Employee relationships are the observation unit in the A Scheme (a-ordningen) register, while the employer is the main reporting unit. 

The total national economy, and the distinction between the national economy and foreign countries, is defined in terms of resident units. A unit is defined as a resident unit of the country when it has a centre of economic interest in the economic territory of the country - i.e. when it is involved in economic activities on this territory for an extended period of time (one year or more).

The national accounts comprise two basic statistical units: institutional units and local kind-of-activity units (establishments). Institutional units are economic entities that are capable of owning goods and assets, of incurring liabilities and of engaging in economic activities and transactions with other units in their own right. An institutional unit contains one or more local kind-of-activity units (local KAUs). The local KAUs are classified by type of activity. An activity is characterised by an input of products, a production process and an output of products. All local KAUs engaged in the same or similar kind-of-activity constitute an industry.  The population consists of persons employed in Norwegian establishments which are not registered as residents of Norway (foreign labour on short-time stays) and persons employed on ships and boats in ocean transportation and military conscripts. The QNA figures used for the STS-statistics are limited to market activities (not general government and non-profit institutions).

The total Norwegian national economy, and the distinction between the national economy and foreign countries, is defined in terms of resident units. A unit is defined as a resident unit in Norway when it has a centre of economic interest in the economic territory of Norway - i.e. when it is involved in economic activities on this territory for an extended period of time (one year or more).

The Norwegian territory includes mainland Norway, the Norwegian part of the Continental Shelf (where there is a lot of oil and gas extraction), and the Arctic islands of Svalbard, Jan Mayen and Bjørnøya. 

It should be noted that Svalbard has a special jurisdiction, i.e. the Treaty of Svalbard states equal treatment with respect to access, residence and activity for all their treaty partners within the framework of local laws and regulations. In terms of territories, Norway has excluded Svalbard from being part of the international EEA treaty. However, Norwegians' activities on Svalbard are included in GDP and Labor account of Norway, while for various practical reasons the Russian owned activities in Barentsburg have in the past not been included in the Norwegian statistics. 

(The other extreme position, to leave out economic activities all together as a consequence of the exclusion from EEA, has been discussed, but not been taken into effect. The statistical situation on Svalbard is however about to change. One aspect is that the Norwegian Statistical law came into force on Svalbard as from 1st January 2007, initiating work to strengthen statistical description of activities on Svalbard in general. Another aspect is that Russian enterprises as from only in 2011 are registered in the Norwegian National Register of Legal Units (Enhetsregisteret) and the Norwegian register of Company Accounts (Brønnøysundregisteret). For the future it is thus expected that the activities of the Russian units operating on Svalbard on a permanent basis are to be included in the population of Norwegian Statistics and subsequently part of Norwegian GDP and Labor account.)

Seamen on ships in ocean transport owned by resident units, in other words Norwegian shipping companies, are included.

Employed persons (employees and self-employed) in these Norwegian establishments are covered in the QNA, regardless of residency status of the employed persons.

Data starts 2000Q1

2015 is the reference year, for which the index is equal to 100.

Index. For this STS-indicator, neither indexes nor absolute figures for are published nationally.

Quarter is the reference period

Norwegian Statistics Act (Act No. 54 of June 16 1989 relating to official statistics and Statistics Norway), § 3-2 (Administrative data-processing systems)

Norway is a member of the European Statistical System (ESS) through the EEA agreement. The regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on Community statistics on European statistics was incorporated into Annex XXI of the EEA agreement in December 2009. The regulation was also established in Norwegian law as a regulation pursuant to the Norwegian Statistics Act. (More information) 

• Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics, repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics (EBS-Regulation)
• Commission Implementing Regulation 2020/1197 laying down technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistic (General Implementing Act)

Not relevant

The Statistics Act of 1989 stipulates that Statistics Norway is the central body for preparation and dissemination of official statistics, where § 2-6 states that: Information collected in accordance with any prescribed obligation to provide information, or which is given voluntarily, shall under no circumstances be published in such a way that it may be traced back to the supplier of any data or to any other identifiable individual to the detriment of the person concerned, or to the unreasonable detriment of the latter if the supplier of the data or the individual is an undertaking of the kind mentioned in § 5-1 third paragraph or a public organization.

Due to few establishments in the following NACE Rev. 2 industry divisions in Norway, the figures are flagged as confidential, and can’t be published: 

05 Mining of coal and lignite
07 Mining of metal ores
12 Manufacture of tobacco products
19 Manufacture of coke and refined petroleum products
39 Remediation activities and other waste management services

For the STS indicators for employment please see the release calendar on Eurostat's website.

The QNA publication schedule is pre-released in Statistics Norway's Advance Release Calendar.
Please See http://www.ssb.no/en/kalender?omrade=National+accounts+and+business+cycles.

The publication dates are announced in advance in the  https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/news/release-calendar?start=1685916000000&type=dayGridWeek. 

The STS indicators for employment for Norway can only be accessed through Eurostat's website.

Statistics Norway releases QNA statistics at the website: www.ssb.no/en/knr, which the STS indicators for employment is based on. The statistics are released at 08.00 a.m. in Norwegian and English.

Equal treatment of all users is an important part of Statistics Norway’s dissemination policy. No governmental (including Eurostat) or non-governmental bodies have prior access to data before its release.

Data are transmitted to Eurostat by teletransmission shortly after national publication prior to the EUROSTAT deadline. 

Data are transmitted quarterly to Eurostat. These STS figures are not disseminated on www.ssb.no.

Press release and tables for the Norwegian QNA at http://www.ssb.no/en/knr, which is the major input for this STS statistics. The STS figures are not disseminated on www.ssb.no.

Press release and tables for the Norwegian QNA at http://www.ssb.no/en/knr

The STS indicators for employment for Norway can only be accessed through Eurostat's website, but the STS indicators are based on our labor account compilation integrated with the QNA, and these QNA figures are also disseminated in our StatBank: http://www.ssb.no/en/table/09175

Not available

Some QNA figures are available in Open data with API, please see: http://data.ssb.no/api/?lang=en&tags=knr

QNA figures are documented in About the statistics (Under "About the statistics" and "About seasonal adjustment").

Fore detailed documentation of the Norwegian labour accounts compilation integrated with the national accounts, please see: Documents 2014/2

Documentation of the Norwegian National Accounts

Statistics Norway works systematically with quality issues in the production of statistics, which shall be based on the best methods available. The European Statistics Code of Practice provides a central framework for quality work in our production of statistics. This is stated in our steering document

 Statistics Norway's business process model is a detailed description of all the work processes in our statistical production. The model is useful in order to be able to achieve the long term goals of improvement and standardization of work processes in our statistical production, which is part of Statistics Norway's strategy. (The link above is only to the 1^st edition of our business process model. Our 2^nd edition of 2012 is not yet published in English.)

In our publication series Plans and reports, the yearly overarching plan of activity plan for Statistics Norway activity are published. The annual activity plan describes how the strategy about systematic quality improvement is followed up in different statistics for the year within our budget limits.

The basis of our STS-statistics of figures on employment is the Norwegian quarterly National Account (QNA) figures. In About the QNA statistics there in a chapter about Sources of error, where the following are written:

Measurement and processing errors may occur when the QNA data source is produced as well as when the QNA figures based on this source are produced.

The various sources of error and uncertainty in the QNA can be divided into four main groups:

A. Missing or incomplete data sources for parts of the economy: One important source of uncertainty is missing or incomplete data series for the development of parts of the economy. For some parts of the economy the data situation for developing up-to-date figures in the quarterly national accounts is weak, for instance:

• Gross fixed capital investment in service industries etc.
• Intermediate consumption in most industries
• Information about non-profit institutions serving households (NPISHs)

B. Relevance in relation to the use of a data source as an indicator in the QNA system. Here, relevance means that a statistical source may not be perfectly suitable as an indicator for the variable it is used for, but it is used because more appropriate indicators are lacking. The source data may for instance not cover the economic field that the QNA variable is supposed to cover; there may be differences between the source data and the QNA with regard to variable definitions, etc).

C. Uncertainty or errors in the QNA data sources: This includes sampling errors, errors connected to the determination of the population, processing errors, measurement errors, non-response errors and/or model errors in each of the statistical sources used in the QNA.

D. Measurement errors, processing errors and/or model errors in the process of compiling the QNA data.

When it comes to expressing the overall uncertainty in the QNA with an explicit statistical variable such as variance, standard deviation or confidence interval, this is not possible. For some of the statistical sources, statistical uncertainty for some of the errors listed above (point C) may be calculated in theory. In practice, these calculations have not yet been done for most of the statistical sources.

Since the quarterly national accounts and the annual national accounts are an integrated system with balancing methods and consistency checks, there is reason to believe that annual and quarterly national accounts may reduce some of the inaccuracies in the statistical sources. On the other hand, the national accounts require the production of statistics in areas where the sources are unsatisfactory (point A and B), and the inaccuracy in such areas may therefore be significant. In addition, some measurement errors, processing errors and/or model errors may occur in the compilation process of QNA figures.

As stated earlier, the annual national accounts are one of the main pillars in the QNA. Thus, errors and uncertainty in the annual accounts figures will also affect QNA figures. The EU Commission and Eurostat have completed a quality evaluation of the annual national accounts in all EEA countries. The conclusion was that the ( annual ) Norwegian national accounts are of a high quality, soundly based on reliable and exhaustive sources, integrated in a system with a detailed product breakdown (Report on the sources and methods used in compiling GNP in Norway, Eurostat/B1/CPNB/237/EN, 9 December 1997, Luxembourg).

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) carried out an evaluation of central parts of Norwegian macroeconomic statistics in autumn 2002, including the Norwegian quarterly national accounts. In the report, (IMF (2003)), the Norwegian macroeconomic statistics, including national accounts got positive reviews: "In summary, Norway's macroeconomic statistics are of generally high quality." About the national accounts, the IMF also expressed that : "The source data for both the annual and the quarterly national accounts are generally sound and timely, and sufficiently portray reality."

In 2003, Statistics Norway carried out a project to evaluate the quality of the Norwegian QNA. The task of the project was to describe the different processes in the system, evaluate the different processes and set up a plan for further work to improve quality. A project report was released in April 2004 (Evensen, 2004a) . The report lists a variety of measures to increase quality, such as changes in the organisation of the QNA process, technical changes in the data system, an increase and improvement of the documentation related to the QNA system etc.

Another way of measuring the general quality of the quarterly national accounts is to compare the preliminary annual figures from the first version of the annual accounts (by adding up the quarters in the QNA) with the final version. This was done in 2004 (Evensen, 2004b). The article looks at the growth rates of the main aggregates: GDP, GDP for mainland Norway, household consumption, government consumption, gross fixed capital formation, exports, imports and compensation of employees. For most variables, the study covers the years 1972-2002, while for some variables it covers the years 1993-2002. The study concludes that the preliminary figures generally had underestimated the growth rate in relation to the final figures, but that the overall picture did not differ too much.

If non-response errors affect the statistical sources used in the quarterly national accounts, these types of errors may indirectly affect the QNA figures. It is, however, not possible to calculate such effects in the QNA data.

If sampling errors affect the short-term statistics that are used as sources in the quarterly national accounts, these types of errors may also indirectly affect the QNA figures. It is, however, not possible to calculate such effects in the QNA data.

The production of several of the sources that are used in the national accounts takes a considerable amount of time. Consequently, preliminary figures are more inaccurate than final figures.

Eurostat is the main user, with the statistical needs in accordance with the EBS regulations.

Not available.

Complete 

In About the QNA statistics there in a chapter about Sources of error, where quality issues are described.

Due to no separate data collection, sampling errors is not directly relevant. However some results from sample surveys are utilized in the QNA. The total employment figure from the Norwegian LFS is one such figure.

QNA are published according to economic activity at a level comparable to Classification A38 of the NACE Rev.2. The industry groups in these QNA figures are not detailed enough for all the STS requirements. We utilize quarterly register based employee statistics by detailed industry in order to break the QNA figures down to the industry groups needed for STS. Due to the register based decomposition method, the uncertainty of STS figures for more detailed industry groups than the A38 classification of the NACE Rev.2 are a little bit higher. This is also the case for STS aggregates based on more detailed industry groups than the A38 classification, such as the Main Industrial Groupings (MIG).

In About the QNA statistics there in a chapter about Sources of error, where quality issues are described.

STS indicators for employment is published at Eurostat website about two months after the end of the quarter.

Normally good punctuality, but there are some time lag between the publishing of the QNA figures at http://www.ssb.no/en/knr and the publishing of the STS indicators at Eurostat webpage.

National STS figures only. There are no known geographical comparability problems.

Only annual regional accounts for employed persons: www.ssb.no/en/table/09391

The latest figures are considered as preliminary, and are revised as more information become available to our QNA system.

The STS indicators starting at 2000Q1 are comparable over time.

Due to the use of Norwegian labour accounts compilation integrated with the national accounts for the STS-indicators of employed persons, the figures are consistent across: other STS domains, other STS indicators and with the National Accounts, both quarterly and annual.

Results from the Labour force survey (LFS) and the yearly  register-based Employment statistics are two of many sources used in our National Accounts Statistics, so they are not exactly comparable. Also the populations deviate a little. The LFS and the register-based Employment statistics only include persons who are registered as residents in the population register. Persons working in Norway who are not registered as permanent residents or who are planning to stay for less than six months are not included in the employment figure in the LFS. If these people lose their job it does not count as a fall in employment or a rise in unemployment. In QNA figures, employed non-residents are included in the employment figure as long as they work in an establishment in Norway. If employment decreases in this group it will count as a fall in employment in QNA.

Statistics Norway publishes separate figures for all registered non-residents once a year. See short-term immigrants.

Due to the use of Norwegian labour accounts compilation integrated with the national accounts for the STS-indicators of employed persons, the figures are consistent within the data set. Norway uses a direct approach for compilation of the QNA, where extrapolation of final annual national account (ANA) figures is done with short-term indicators. This makes the QNA consistent with annual NA. For information on consistency between quarterly and annual national accounts please see: About the QNA statistics or Documents 2014/2.

There is no separate data collection for the STS statistics on employed persons , so the costs are low, quarterly production costs (for all annexes) are about man-week.

The basis of our STS-statistics of figures on employment is the Norwegian quarterly National Account (QNA) figures. The QNA data are revised in accordance with an ordinary publication and revision cycle, which is described to the users in About the QNA statistics. The revision policy and practice for seasonally adjusted QNA data are described in the chapter Audit procedures in About seasonal adjustment of QNA.

Routine revisions:

The QNA-figures within a specific year t have the status final 23 months after the end of the year. The latest figures are considered as preliminary, and are revised as more information becomes available to our QNA system. The accounts for the first quarter of the current year are published in May, together with revised figures for the previous year. Figures for the second quarter are published in August, together with revised figures for the first quarter. In November, the first figures for the third quarter are published together with revised figures for the first and second quarter and revised figures for the past two years. In this publication, the results for year t-2 are considered final. Finally, figures for the fourth quarter are published in February the following year, together with revised figures for the first, second and third quarter.

The methods and calculating system used to calculate the QNA are also used to compile the first three versions of the annual national accounts. The first version of the annual accounts is compiled by simply adding up the four quarters of the ordinary QNA. In the two subsequent versions (published at the beginning of June and December respectively), annual statistics and other information available at the time are also utilized. The third annual version of the national accounts then remains unchanged in one year until final figures are compiled based on detailed annual statistics and methods for compilation of annual national accounts for publishing in November one year later. The QNA revision policy is described in detail in chapter 2 of Documents 2014/2.

Due to a revision of the unadjusted (raw) data or the addition of new data, seasonally adjusted data may change, also several quarters back. Concurrent adjustment is made. This means that the model, filters, outliers and regression parameters are re-identified and re-estimated continuously as new or revised data become available. Concerning the main aggregates, the period of revisions is limited from the base year of the QNA to the present. This means that seasonally adjusted data for quarterly national accounts are held constant prior to the base year of the QNA.

Major revisions:

Periodical main revisions in our National Account also give revised QNA and STS figures. Main Revision 2019 is a planned change in the national accounts statistics.  Revision of national accounts time series was published in June 2019.

The average size is not expected to change and therfor there is no plan to revise it as part of the major revision. It cannot be completely ruled out that there will be a revision of the sizes in major revisions, but it is unlikely that this will happen.

Every 5 year the base year of the indexes are changed for all the STS indexes.

The STS indicator for employed persons are estimated by combining data from Norwegian labour accounts compilation integrated with the Quarterly National Accounts (QNA) and data on employees in middle month of the quarter from our register-based employee statistics, where the Employee register was the main source before 2015 and the A Scheme register from 2015.

The A Scheme register from January 2015 is a monthly reporting of employee and payroll information (a-melding) to NAV, Tax Administration and Statistics Norway. Jobs classified as ordinary and maritime in the A Scheme register corresponds to the population of employees in the earlier Employee register. Still, the earlier Employee register was supposed to contain all job relation scheduled to more than four hours a week and lasting more than six days. Under the A Scheme Act the reporting duty for an employer occurs for all his employees with payroll or expenditure allowance above 1000 Norwegian kroner per annum. Due to this new and more strict reporting duty, the A Scheme register have a wider scope than the earlier Employee register.

No separate data collection.

No separate data collection.

No separate data collection.

When indexes are calculated, the annual average of the 4 quarters in the base year is set equal to 100. No other weighting variable are used construction of the indexes.

Seasonal adjustment of the QNA

The program X-12-ARIMA is used for seasonal adjustment of the QNA. The method used implies adjustment of the aggregates directly. The direct method is the first step and it is used on all the aggregates. Thereafter we apply the indirect method on the individual series and then sum the series to its respective aggregate. The period of revision is limited from the base year to the present (where the figures are additive). For the years preceding the base year we keep the figures calculated from the direct seasonal adjustment approach. When a new QNA base year is established, and the time series are updated, we use identical seasonal adjustment factors as before. This means that changes in seasonally adjusted data are only due to changes in the unadjusted data. Note that we use information from the entire period of the time series to estimate seasonal adjustment factors, but we use this information only from the base year to the present. For more details on seasonal adjustments of QNA please see About seasonal adjustments.

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