Christmas stalls along Karl Johans gate in Oslo is more influenced by gifts, mulled wine and good mood than by swooping oil prices and a decline in the oil industry.
But Roy Aurstad (32) works as coordinator for the oil and gas carriers and oil prices have in mind.
– If the oil price continues to fall, it will probably affect my wallet. It will affect the economy in Norway AS and turn hit hardest those who have least. Currently there enough to do with us in the oil industry, so there is no mood of crisis, but it may be that if the oil price slump continues, he said.
Worried Rogaland
The county president Truls Nordahl Nav Rogaland sits right in the center of Oil Norway and being struck by the major powers in the world economy.
– If oil prices remain low for a long or fall further, there is every reason to be worried, he says .
The oil price is Norway’s most important award. Since summer has declined from $ 115 per. barrel to around $ 73 yesterday afternoon. If the price stays there long, it will seem far into the payroll account to many.
Aftenposten wrote yesterday about all the forces acting to mitigate the effects of a prolonged decline in oil prices. But although cushions there, the private economy be affected if oil prices fall further and remain low.
Lower wages and less consumption
Statistics Norway (SSB) tried this summer to quantify effects of lower oil prices five years into the future.
SSB looking at an oil price of 60 dollars per firm. barrel instead of 94 dollars per fixed. barrel. It is assumed that the price fall comes because it is being offered too much oil in the market, not because it gets even worse times in the world economy.
Compared to a future with $ 94 pr. barrel price drop will act to five years:
Unemployment is 1 percentage point higher. That means 25-30000 several vacant. Real wages are 3.6 percent lower. In other words, the annual growth rate will be around 0.7 percentage point lower. For the average wage, this means about 20,000 million less in purchasing power in five years, based on today’s dollar value and the rain before tax. Housing prices are 16-17 percent lower than they would otherwise have been, and virtually unchanged compared to 2014. The interest rate is approximately 1 percentage point lower.
The total private consumption is roughly 6 percent lower. This is roughly 40,000 dollars less per. family, considered as a fall from an estimated average annual consumption of around 650,000 million over the next five years.
Less demand
SSB researcher Torbjørn Eika says the main effect comes via demand from oil activities and use of oil revenues in the state budget. Lower price means lower oil investments and less work on land.
Oil price fall sets in motion a series of forces acting on the private economy: krone weakens and interest rates will be down.
– Demand in economy falls and unemployment rises. It makes wage inflation. Meanwhile, inflation higher due to a weaker exchange rate and more expensive imports. In sum, this means that the growth in purchasing power is significantly less than it otherwise would have been, say Eika.
Lower purchasing power usually means also lower private consumption than it otherwise would have been.
Action Norges Bank
The only consolation for the wallet is that Norges Bank eventually will probably cut interest rates. It helps good for those who have loans. Nevertheless, growth in house prices according to these calculations mute themselves so much that they become virtually unchanged over the next five years.
– Lower income will result in lower demand for housing and thus lower inflation, says Eika.
Chief Economist Øystein Dørum DNB Markets Norges Bank cut opportunities as an important buffer against lower oil prices.
– Moreover, households increased savings pretty much in recent years. Consumption would have been more exposed in 2006 when the savings rate was zero, than in 2014 when nearly 10 per cent, he said.
vacant
Many people will lose their jobs because of lower oil prices, but many will also get a new job in industries that can benefit from better times abroad and weaker exchange rate. Some migrant workers will go home and fewer will come.
In the calculation assumes that politicians SSB after a few years the price fall meetings to raise taxes and cut public spending. They do to adapt the state budget to lower incomes and less money in the Oil Fund. Eika says this is an unsafe condition.
– It may well be that a price drop is met using more oil money in a few years, he said.
Roy Aurstad Karl Johan allows until further førjuls-shopping be unaffected by falling curves and some uncertainty in the future.
– I do not think anything of it at the moment, but if the decline continues, it may affect spending my, he says .
* Prerequisite for arrows: Oil Fall to $ 40 pr. barrel next year and then $ 60 per. barrel in 2020. The figures show SSB estimated change in 2020 compared to the economy with flat oil price $ 94 per. barrel.
Engineers: More dramatic than we thought
Engineering Organization NITO are very concerned about developments in the oil and supplier industry.
– It has been very tough in this business since last spring, and we see constantly that many engineers are losing their jobs, says Information Manager Jan Kjetil Johnsrud in NITO.
He points out that unemployment among engineers has increased by 36 percent compared with last November. But this is from very low levels.
– Yet we see our unemployment figures that unemployment among engineers are still generally low. Studies show that there is still great need for engineers, including state and municipality. We hope that the labor market fails to capture those who lose their jobs. But it is difficult to know, for the recent downsizing has not yet knocked out of the statistics, says Johnsrud.
Not visible figures yet
Sources Aftenposten spoke to industry believes it is natural that over recent months layoffs have not yet begun to turn out in unemployment figures. They show that many of the positions being cut are consulting positions.
Moreover, many had agreed end date some months ahead, and many have severance packages with one half to one year’s salary, which means that they first emerge in Navs registers onto the spring – if they have not got a new job.
Also CEO Preben Power in cluster Subsea Valley Asker says several of its member companies in the area have announced job cuts in the fall, and that more companies may soon have to do the same, if the decline in oil prices and oil investments continues.
– After Opec decision not to cut production, it now appears much more dramatic one we thought only a short time ago, says he said.
1. Fearing the wallet to be affected by falling oil prices and the decline of the oil industry? 2. Does it affect how you spend your money now?
Ase Iren Suhr (26): 1. I go to school and do not think too much about economics yet. But we’ve already been through a financial crisis, so it should probably not so much now before people start to notice it. I’m from Finnmark, where is the great snowy workplace. If jobs begin to disappear there, it will no longer be so attractive to live in Finnmark.2. No, I’m already finished with Christmas presents. It’s okay to be early when you do not have as good economics. When one student and mother of two, one must be smart, so I shopped many of the presents already under the January sales.
Ingunn Ragnarsdottir (20): 1. I have not thought anything on, I must admit. But I am Icelandic, so I should probably done it? I am studying nursing, and it’s a pretty safe industry.
2. I shop enough less for Christmas this year than I did last year. That’s because it’s the first year I am a student and have less money.
Siss Smørholm: (will not specify age) 1. I’ve got it with me on the news, but I have not thought much about it, no. The economy goes up and down, do not, then?
2. I am seeking employment and taking courses, so this year I bought all the presents online from abroad because it is cheaper. I seek jobs in the security industry, and there are plenty to be enough to make forward too.
sigurd.bjornestad@aftenposten.no
stine.barstad@aftenposten.no
– I’m not surprised about the price of oil will move down in the 60s, says Jarand Rystad of consultancy Energy Rystad which is one of the most used consultancies oil industry. 
