OSLO, June 2 (Xinhua) -- The number of registered unemployed Norwegians went down in May, online newspaper E24 reported Friday.
Last month there were 70,900 people registered as fully unemployed at the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV) -- 1,900 fewer than before, E24 wrote.
The proportion of unemployed is now 2.6 percent of the workforce, compared with 2.9 percent in May last year, a report from NAV said.
"There is a clear improvement in the Norwegian labor market. This is in line with other figures we have," Erik Bruce, chief analyst at Nordea financial group, told E24.
He pointed out that the national accounts showed rising employment.
Since the beginning of the year, unemployment has fallen by about 1,000 people on average per month.
After the years that experienced the oil crisis, the situation gets brighter, Bruce said.
"It tells us that the oil crisis is at its end. The way it looks, the unemployment flattens out in oil-countries and then it continues to fall in the rest of the country," he said, adding that it was difficult to say whether this was due to the stronger economy or weaker job offers.
"NAV figures continue to show an improvement in the labor market, indicating that capacity utilization is increasing," said Jeanette Strom Fjaere, economist at DNB Markets investment bank.
Sigrun Vageng, NAV's director, expressed belief that unemployment would fall further.
"The labor market trend has been positive over the past six months and in May we had a significant decline in the number of unemployed. More job vacancies and fewer notifications of terminations and layoffs make us expect further decline of unemployment," Vageng said in a press release.
However, despite fewer being reported as unemployed, many still struggle to get a job.
"At the same time, the number of long-term unemployed increased and unemployment has increased among those who have been job seekers for more than one year and most among them who have been job seekers for between one-and-a-half and two years," according to the NAV report.
"In May, 21,500 of the unemployed had been unemployed for over a year. Long-term unemployment has especially increased in the counties that have been hit by the decline in the oil industry," it said.
NAV statistics do not reflect the total number of unemployed Norwegians, as not all unemployed people register themselves as such, E24 wrote. Enditem
