Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2005, published 95th ILC session (2006)

Employment Policy Convention, 1964 (No. 122) - Norway (Ratification: 1966)

The Committee takes note of the detailed information contained in the Government’s report, received in October 2004, which describes the main trends in employment and provides data on specific groups in the labour market.

1. Labour market policies. The Government indicates that, while Norway has one of the highest labour market participation rates and one of the lowest unemployment rates in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), four years of slow economic growth have brought a levelling off and some decline of labour market participation and rising unemployment. However, in the second half of 2003, there were clear signs of economic recovery and this trend was expected to continue, bringing higher employment and falling joblessness. As of May 2004, the unemployment rate had fallen to 4.3 per cent. The Government points out that both the OECD and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) consider that the Norwegian labour market functions generally well, while expressing concern over the growth in the number of social security recipients. The Government indeed indicates that 12.3 per cent of the labour force receives disability pension, 3.5 per cent of the labour force is registered as vocationally handicapped and sickness absence represents 8.5 per cent of all days worked. In this regard, the Government insists that the vocationally handicapped are a priority group and a proactive rehabilitation process, in most cases using labour market measures, has been designed to get as many as possible back to work. In fact, a condition for receiving disability benefits is that vocational rehabilitation has been considered and tried out. The Committee takes due note of this information. With reference to its 2003 direct request, in which the Government had mentioned objectives of reducing absence due to sickness by at least 20 per cent over the period 2001-05 as well as ensuring that a significantly higher percentage of employees with impaired functional capacities are in employment, the Committee asks the Government to continue to provide information on the achievement of these objectives and how the key objectives of welfare policy and labour market policy are fulfilled.

2. As regards labour force participation amongst men and women, the Government indicates that, although women’s labour force participation rate is high (47.2 per cent of the work force), 42.6 per cent of employed women work part time compared with 12 per cent for men. However, in recent years, unemployment has shown wider fluctuation among men than women, mainly due to the fact that men are to a greater degree employed in manufacturing and competitively exposed sectors. The Government also indicates that low participation rate and high unemployment (9.6 per cent) weaken immigrants’ opportunity to become integrated in society. Therefore, the Government states that greater emphasis has been given to user orientation and to tailoring efforts and measures to the individual jobseekers, which is significant in terms of meeting immigrants’ particular needs. The Committee looks forward to receive, from the Government in its next report, an assessment of the impact of its active labour market measures, including information on the extent to which these measures have been successful in achieving its objectives of increasing the labour force and reducing unemployment.  Please also continue to include detailed disaggregated information on labour market trends (Articles 1 and 2 of the Convention).