In 2001, close to 30 000 persons resident in Sweden were employed in Norway for all or part of the year. Swedes who have registered as residents in Norway come in addition. An increased supply of labour from new EU member states to Norwegian enterprises will result in a higher-than-normal increase in potential output for a period. Many of the foreign workers work for a shorter period in Norway without being employed in a Norwegian enterprise. Examples include foreign contractors and self-employed in the construction industry who carry out various building projects in Norway, as well as others who carry out other types of projects. Aker Kværner, for example, has contracted 300 consultants based in India to work on the Ormen Lange project in northwest Norway. An increase in the use of these short-term contracts will appear as an increase in Norway’s service imports, and increases the supply of goods and services without drawing on domestic resources. The latest Directorate of Labour figures show that seasonally adjusted unemployment was 3.4 per cent in October. Statistics Norway’s Labour Force Survey (LFS), however, presents a somewhat weaker picture of unemployment. Registered unemployment is on the decline in all regions. The fall in unemployment has been relatively moderate in Region Inland, although this is partly because the level of unemployment was already low. As I mentioned earlier, the reports from Norges Bank’s regional network provide important information for Norges Bank’s analysis of the Norwegian economy.
The output gap is a measure that expresses our assessment of total capacity utilisation in the economy. The output gap is defined as the percentage difference between actual output and potential output. Potential output indicates the level of output that is consistent with price and cost stability. The estimate for the output gap is uncertain, partly because the level of potential output is unobservable and must be estimated. Since official statistics on overall activity in the economy are not available immediately and are subsequently revised, the level of actual output will be uncertain. Our overall assessment is that capacity utilisation has picked up over the past two years and is now slightly higher than normal. In our estimation of the output gap, the result of technical calculations is compared with other sources of information about capacity utilisation in the economy. Information from Norges Bank’s regional network may indicate that overall mainland capacity utilisation is close to a normal level. However, there are signs of bottlenecks in production in some sectors of the economy. For example, capacity utilisation in the construction sector is very high, particularly in the southwest  BIS Review 79/2005  1  region of the country. There are signs of some skills shortages in the construction industry, in manufacturing and in some service industries. Even though growth in the Norwegian economy has been high for a long period, substantial labour shortages have not yet emerged in the economy as a whole.