OSLO, April 7 — Norway’s rate of unemployment rose to 15.4 per cent today, the Labour and Welfare Agency (NAV) said, the highest level on record, up from 14.7 per cent on March 31, as the economy ground to a halt amid efforts to curb the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Norwegian government announced last month emergency shutdowns of many public and private institutions, including schools and kindergartens, sending the economy into a tailspin and triggering hundreds of thousands of layoffs.
“Unemployment is highest in the tourism and transport sector, with 26.9 per cent of that work force registered as fully unemployed,” NAV said in a statement.
The number of registered full-time unemployed, not taking those partially unemployed or on job training into account, dropped to 10.4 per cent from 10.7 per cent a week earlier.
The drop is due to some 10,000 individuals who recently became unemployed and who have now reported to NAV that they had worked somewhat over the past week. They were thus reclassified as partially unemployed.
Although many job cuts were classified as temporary, such as restaurants and airlines expecting to bring back employees when restrictions are eventually lifted, economists have warned that many firms may in fact struggle to recover.
A major oil and gas producer, Norway is also suffering from a crash in the price of crude, its main export, and this industry has also announced layoffs.
The government will announce later today whether it will modify its restrictions, currently in place until April 13. — Reuters
