Reports

Norway is characterised by very high levels of migration from within the European Economic Area (EEA) and growing but small scale labour migration from countries outside the EEA. In this context, the challenge for managing discretionary labour migration is to ensure it complements EEA flows. High-skilled workers who come to Norway often leave, even if their employer would like to keep them. Norway has many international students, but most appear to leave at graduation or in the years that follow. The spouses of skilled migrants – usually educated and talented themselves – face challenges in finding employment, and this may cause the whole family to leave. Key industries in smaller population centres wonder how they will source talent in the future. This review examines these aspects of the Norwegian labour migration system. It considers the efficiency of procedures and whether the system is capable of meeting demand. It looks at several policy measures that were implemented and withdrawn, and assesses how these and other mechanisms could be better applied. The characteristics and behaviour of past labour migrants is examined to suggest means of encouraging promising immigrants to remain, and how Norway might attract the specific labour migrants from which it can most benefit in the future.

This book presents a comprehensive review of health care quality in Norway. It finds that Norway has an impressive and comprehensive health system, which is the result of sustained commitment to providing health care for the whole Norwegian population, investment in the health system, and readiness to make changes to drive improvements. On most indicators Norway’s health system appears to be performing well, although there is some room for improvement. There have been a number of significant health care reforms in Norway over the last decade, most recently the Coordination Reform, which took effect in January 2012. Broadly this is a positive story, but challenges do lie ahead for Norway. Norway is putting in place measures to respond to these challenges, notably with the 2012 Coordination Reform, but still has some way to go before the fruits of such labour are truly felt across the health system. Norway’s ambitious reform agenda must now be balanced by structured efforts ‘on the ground’. Attention should now turn to putting in place appropriate data infrastructures, promoting meaningful engagement between key stakeholders, and by balancing a generous health budget that allows for important investments in developing new structures and services with attention to getting the most out of existing services.

Skills are central to Norway’s future prosperity and the well-being of its people. This diagnostic report identifies 12 skills challenges for Norway which were distilled from a series of interactive diagnostic workshops held in the course of 2013 with a wide range of stakeholders in Oslo, Buskerud County and Nordland County. The OECD Skills Strategy Diagnostic Report: Norway draws upon a wide range of OECD comparative data and analysis to illustrate each skills challenge and offers insights from the experience of other countries in tackling similar skills challenges. The first nine skills challenges refer to specific outcomes across the three pillars of developing, activating and using skills. The last three skills challenges refer to the 'enabling' conditions which strengthen the overall skills system.  

This report provides an overview of the substantial ageing and employment policy initiatives already implemented in Norway over the past decade and identifies areas where more should be done, covering both supply-side and demand-side aspects. To give better incentives to carry on working, the report recommends further reforms in the second-pillar pension schemes, particularly for public sector employees. On the side of employers, it is important to progress towards more age-neutral hiring decisions and to review of age limits for mandatory retirement. To improve the employability of older workers, the focus should be to promote job-related training with a particular focus on mid-career workers and to encourage initiatives based on a full-time culture and good working conditions for all.

Les gouvernements sont parmi les principaux émetteurs de titres d’emprunt sur le marché mondial des capitaux. Le présent volume fournit des informations quantitatives sur les titres d’emprunt d’État pour les 34 pays membres de l'OCDE en vue de répondre aux besoins analytiques des utilisateurs tels que les pouvoirs publics, les spécialistes de la gestion de la dette et les analystes de marché. Les statistiques sont présentées selon un plan d’ensemble normalisé pour permettre une comparaison entre les différents pays. Les notes méthodologiques par pays donnent des informations sur les émissions de titres d’emprunt dans chacun des pays, ainsi que sur le cadre institutionnel et réglementaire dans lequel s’inscrivent la politique de gestion de la dette et les techniques de vente.

Tackling mental ill-health of the working-age population is becoming a key issue for labour market and social policies in OECD countries. OECD governments increasingly recognise that policy has a major role to play in keeping people with mental ill-health in employment or bringing those outside of the labour market back to it, and in preventing mental illness. This report on Norway is the fourth in a series of reports looking at how the broader education, health, social and labour market policy challenges identified in Sick on the Job? Myths and Realities about Mental Health and Work (OECD, 2012) are being tackled in a number of OECD countries. It concludes that Norway faces a unique situation whereby a generous welfare system stimulates large-scale labour market exclusion and significant socio-economic inequalities of people with a mental disorder, and hindering better outcomes of its employment and vocational rehabilitation programmes.