Employment, is necessary for recent time? The fourth industrial revolution has begun, and our response to the new challenges that come with it must be considered. The path to continued growth must be based on ingenuity and better planning.
Employment
We spend about one-third of our lives at work. Our work defines us in society, although it is clear to everyone that we are much more than just our work. Employment should create conditions for us to make good living conditions for ourselves and our families. It can say that employment is the basis for both progress and well-being. We pay taxes on what we produce with our work, and thus we build a foundation for the welfare system we all want to live with. The welfare system is our mutual insurance; it evens the game, and everyone helps those in need in a perfect world. Without our labor contribution, the dividends that drive the economy forward are not created.
Is employment the same as work?
The employment rate has been one of the highest in the world. According to the OECD, the labor force participation rate of working age is 77% in this country. Still, for comparison, the labor force participation rate in the United States is around 69%, 74.4% in Norway, and 75.4% in Germany. The recession due to the pandemic took a heavy toll on working people. In April 2020, 17.8% of non-disabled were unemployed or on partial benefits. In September 2020, unemployment in my home area was at its highest and was well over 20%.
At that time, I proposed to the Minister of Social Affairs and Children’s Affairs ideas for more important state intervention to create jobs. The proposal primarily addressed my concerns about the long-term consequences of unemployment, not only financial but no less spiritual and social.
The idea was for the Labor Agency to significantly expand the conditions for tripartite employment contracts so that employers who did have the opportunity to create jobs would receive support for employment equivalent to full unemployment benefits. States would have to be ensured that they would not give chances for dumping in the labor market, and wages would have to take into account wages based on the collective agreement. I wanted to go further than the workplace agreements the Norwegian Labor and Employment Agency was still authorized to make and created during the economic collapse. The first regulatory change in this direction was very beneficial, as it made it possible to enter into employment contracts with workers who had been on the unemployment register for less than 12 months in the areas where unemployment was the worst. A more weighty and robust implementation of these ideas was presented in March under the name.