2025

Tripartite cooperation to ensure relevant skills for working life

The green paper NOU 2025:1 – Shared Responsibility, Shared Benefit. Social Partnership for Skills Development in Working Life (‘Felles Ansvar, felles innsats. Partssamarbeid for kompetanseutvikling i arbeidslivet’) explores how tripartite cooperation can better promote skills development and lifelong learning, with the overarching goals of maintaining high and stable employment, counteracting growing inequality, and ensuring that the labour markeet has the skills needed for the future. The Skills Reform Committee has proposed measures to stimulate employers and employees to strengthen skills and provide all workers with opportunities for necessary reskilling and upskilling. The proposed measures include a digital skills platform to improve access to information and training opportunities, as well as a comprehensive system for documenting and recognizing prior learning acquired in working life. 

2024

Skills reform for working life

The Skills Reform Committee ('Kompetansereformutvalget') was established in June 2023 and will present its report in January 2025. The committee has been mandated to investigate how the social partners can better facilitate restructuring and learning in the workplace, given the overarching goals of high stable employment, counteracting increasing inequality, and ensuring the skills the workplace needs.

2023

Policy efforts to meet future challenges

In the Perspective Paper (“Utsynsmeldingen”), the Norwegian Government sets out the direction for future skills policy, with a focus on what kinds of expertise Norway will need in the coming years. The main challenges are to ensure that Norway has the necessary expertise to meet the challenges of the future, and to reach as many people as possible with education and knowledge, regardless of place of residence, background and finances.

To meet these challenges, the Government will among others:

• develop a skills reform in collaboration with the social partners in working life
• invest in skills to get more people into work by developing a closer cooperation between the counties and the labour market authorities
• make it easier to get student loans for short courses, and continue the investment in a flexible and decentralized education offer and in study centres.
• prioritize the skills that are needed in the sectors of IT, health and green transition