This report addresses the hiring of temporary agency workers within the construction sector in Trondheim, Norway. The data is a survey of construction sites carried out by five trade unions in November 2023, involving representatives from The United Federation of Trade Unions (Fellesforbundet) and The Electrician and IT workers union (EL og IT Forbundet). Union representatives visited the construction sites to investigate which companies had workers present and whether these workers were hired from a temporary work agency or another construction company, or directly employed by a main contractor or subcontractor. A similar survey was conducted in 2018, and this report compares the findings.
The survey reveals that about 13 per cent of the workers were hired from another company, and of these, 7 per cent came from a temporary work agency. The rest were temporarily hired from other companies within the construction industry. Compared to 2018, the extent of hiring from temporary work agencies has significantly decreased. The proportion of temporarily hired workers was highest in carpentry and concrete work. The share of temporarily hired workers on construction sites in Trondheim remains higher than in the overall labour market.
Norwegian legislation restricts companies' ability to hire labour from temporary work agencies, with the exception of filling in for vacancies. However, hiring companies bound by a nationwide collective agreement may still enter into a written agreement with elected representatives for extended rights to hire labour. The survey indicates that such agreements are much more common than at the time of the 2018 survey. Nevertheless, there are still instances where the hiring company lacks a collective agreement, and instances where companies with a collective agreement have not entered into an agreement regarding the hiring.
