The previous three years the number of long term unemployed people has increased despite the economic upturn and drop in general unemployment.

The number of long term unemployed increased from 46% (of the total number of unemployed persons) in 2002 to 54% in 2004.

Long term unemployed is defined as somebody unable to find work after being unemployed for 26 weeks, also people working sporadically during this period is included.

Important factors to avoid long term unemployment:

• Education level, people with little or no education run a bigger risk of being long term unemployed.
• Age, when you get older the risk of being long term unemployed increases. 42% of people 20-24 year gets long term unemployed, while 79% of people 60 and above gets long term unemployed.

Source: (in Norwegian) aetat.no/cgi-bin/aetat/imaker?id=40840