Fully 1,650 jobs at Norway’s state highway department (Statens vegvesen) may disappear as a result of cost cuts. A total of 7,824 people work in the department nationwide at present.
At stake is a forced reorganization aimed at cutting NOK 1.7 billion from the budget. It would affect 20 percent of the highway department’s staff. Transport news service Veier24 reported that the department’s reorganization proposal was sent to the state transport ministry earlier this week.
The vast majority of the jobs and people affected may be transferred to local counties as part of the regional reform program that’s merging counties and moving more services from the state to the local level. That in turn, however, could involve workers having to move to other areas of the country in 2020, or 2021 at the latest, according to the highway department itself.
newsinenglish.no staff
