The Labour and Welfare Service (Norwegian: ''Arbeids- og velferdsetaten'') is a

government agency A government or state agency, sometimes an appointed commission, is a permanent or semi-permanent organization in the machinery of government that is responsible for the oversight and administration of specific functions, such as an administrati ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. Together with municipal welfare agencies, it makes up the

Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration The Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV, originally an abbreviation of ''Nye arbeids- og velferdsetaten'') is the current Norwegian public welfare agency, which consists of the state Labour and Welfare Service as well as municipal we ...

(NAV). The Labour and Welfare Service (as well as the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration as a whole) is led by Labour and Welfare Directorate, a government directorate located in

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

. Its head is the

Labour and Welfare Director The Labour and Welfare Director (Norwegian: ''Arbeids- og velferdsdirektør'') is an office (''embete'') in Norway, created in 2006. The Labour and Welfare Director is the head of the Labour and Welfare Service The Labour and Welfare Service (Norwe ...

, currently

Joakim Lystad Joakim Theodor Haagaas Lystad (born 17 April 1953) is a Norwegian civil servant. He served as the first Director-General of the Norwegian Food Safety Authority from 2003 to 2010, building the organization. From 2010 to 2015, he was the Labour an ...

. The Labour and Welfare Service has 14,000 employees, whereas the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration as a whole has 19,000 employees. The service is subordinate to the Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion.

References

{{authority control Government agencies of Norway Government agencies established in 2006