Norway

Unemployment benefit when temporarily laid-off

Unemployment benefit for those temporarily laid-off is intended to relieve the employee's loss of income when temporarily laid-off, and is restricted to 52 weeks within an 18-month period.

What is temporary lay-off?

Temporary lay-off absolves the employer from paying an employee under a contract of employment. This is an arrangement that The Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry (NHO) and The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) have negotiated so that that employers do not need to terminate employees during short periods of work shortage. The employer has a legal commitment to pay wages/salries for the first 5 days of the temporary lay-off period.

Special rules for EEA citizens

EEA citizens having some connection with working life in Norway by working here for a certain period and paying tax as employees, may submit claims for Norwegian unemployment benefit. 

The specific requirement is that the person concerned must have worked in Norway for at least 8 weeks. Employment must have commenced within 12 weeks of arrival in Norway and been carried out during the course of a 12-week period.  Unemployment benefit rights earned in another EEA country can then be taken as the basis for assessing the admission condition for minimum income, and for calculating the size of the unemployment benefit. The work requirement also applies to the Nordic countries, with the exception of job seekers who in the course of the last five years prior to the application for unemployment benefit have earned the right to or have received unemployment benefit in Norway;see Nordic Convention on social security.

Transitional rules

The cancellation of the transitional rules applies to citizens from the following EU/EEA member states: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

The transitional rules will continue to apply for job seekers and benefit applicants from Bulgaria and Romania after 1 May 2009. This means that special rules apply to citizens of these EEA countries. Citizens from countries covered by the transitional rules may not obtain Norwegian unemployment benefit until they have been employed consecutively in full-time employment here in Norway for 12 months, and they must also satisfy the normal conditions for obtaining unemployment benefit. Under the transitional rules, the full-time employment condition will be considered to have been met for employments with job percentages down to 80% of full-time positions for the occupation in question. When a citizen of a country with transitional arrangements has been legally resident in Norway as an employee in full-time employment for a consecutive period of at least 12 months, he/she is no longer subject to the transitional rules. He/she will have the same rights under the EEA Agreement as other EEA citizens.

Moreover, all EEA citizens have the right to stay in Norway for up to six months while looking for work here.

See related information for more details about the transitional rules for Bulgaria and Romania and Situations-employees within the EEA. 

Unemployment benefit for temporary lay-off in general

Who can receive unemployment benefit for temporary lay-off?

§  You must satisfy the conditions for unemployment benefit entitlement

§  You must be a wage-earner

§  Your normal working hours must have been reduced by at least  40 percent

§  Lay-off must be due to shortage of work or other circumstances that the employer cannot control

There are special rules for those laid-off but unless otherwise stated, the general rules about unemployment benefit will apply.

Who cannot be laid-off and claim unemployment benefit?

§  Self-employed persons with privately owned firms

§  Relief workers and freelances are only temporarily employed.  When there is a shortage of work, these will have no contracts of employment and cannot therefore be laid-off.  They may however, be entitled to unemployment benefit if other conditions for such allowance are satisfied

§  If employer himself is to blame for the lay-off

§   

Limitations for employees in the public sector and cultural institutions

As a general rule, these do not have a claim for unemployment benefit for temporary lay-off.  The same will apply to employees in cultural institutions run with substantial funding from the public purse.

Exceptions are public enterprises run on the same principles as private businesses and which are organised as independent units.

In assessing whether the business is run on the same principles as private business, it will be crucial that the operation is totally based on the sale of goods or services to principals or customers on the open market.

The limitation does not apply if the temporary lay-off is due to:

§  fire

§  accident

§  natural disaster

§  other unforeseen events

§  industrial dispute

§   

How do you apply?

You must first register as a jobseeker on the internet (only in Norwegian)or at your local NAV office. When you have done this, you must complete a form claiming unemployment benefit. It is important that you attach all the necessary documentation to the form.

Attachments to the claim form

Copy of employment contract and lay-off notice that states:

§  Reason for temporary lay-off

§  Period of lay-off

§  For which days the employer has a legal commitment to pay wages/salaries

The claim form with attachments is to be sent/delivered to the NAV office where you live.

Most applications are normally dealt with in three weeks.

Employment Status Form

The Employment Status Form you submit, provides information on whether you wish to continue as job seeker, whether you have worked and if so, how many hours you have worked in the 14 days covered by the status form. You also have to report sickness, vacation, courses, etc. The form must be correctly filled in and sent in time.

You can do these things yourself:

§  Register as unemployed with NAV (In Norwegian)

§  Send in employment status card electronically (In Norwegian)

§  Draw up your CV for employers without reference to NAV

§  Apply for vacant positions

§  Subscribe to situations vacant advertisements via jobbmail
(In Norwegian)

Source: NAV