Oslo Outlook
Oslo Outlook is a quarterly update that provides a fresh overview of the socio-economic status of the city of Oslo. The data and report are collected and produced by Oslo Economics on behalf of Oslo Business Region, with the current data being relevant as of Q2 2025.
Summary
Job Market
Oslo’s job market is tightening further in early 2025, with more vacancies and steadily rising wages. Labour force capacity is declining, boosting the normalised labour market indicator compared to previous quarters.
Business
VC activity dropped in Q1, hitting its lowest point since 2020. Preliminary Q2 data suggest a turnaround. Business sentiment is stable, and new company registrations are increasing.
Attractiveness
Oslo’s appeal is rising due to higher disposable income, improved housing affordability, and an 8% rise in overnight stays vs. Q1 2024. Migration to the region has declined slightly.
Job Market
Job market tightness
The job market tightness is defined as the ratio of vacant positions to unemployed individuals. The variable shows the relationship between the supply and demand for workers.
In the first quarter of 2025, the job market improved, with an increase in the number of vacant positions of 33%, which exceeds the increase in the number of unemployed individuals
As a result, the ratio increased compared to the last quarter of 2024, hinting at a growing competition among firms for workers.
Labour market participation
The labour force is a measure of the number of people participating in the labour market and is defined as the total number of employed and unemployed individuals. Over the past quarter, we have observed a decline in the number of people participating in the labour market in the Oslo region. This is mainly due to a 4 % decrease in the number of employed individuals.
The unemployment rate is the share of the labour force that is unemployed. In the first quarter of 2025, the unemployment rate increased from 2.17% to 2.43%, which still falls within the normal long-term range of 2–2.5%.
Median wages:
Median nominal wages
Similarly to the last quarter of 2024, median wages in Oslo continued to show strong growth in the first quarter of 2025 .
Quarterly increases remain above the long-term average of about 1 %, although there are indications that the pace of growth has eased somewhat in 2025.
Business
Business confidence:
Norges Bank’s confidence indicator indicates that business expectations for future growth in Oslo have remained stable since the first quarter of 2023, with only minor fluctuations around the trend level.
In the first quarter of 2025, expectations are unchanged from the previous quarter, suggesting that firms remain mildly optimistic
Business dynamics:
The number of newly established businesses has continued to grow since the first quarter of 2024 but remains below its 2021 peak.
In the first quarter of 2025, there was a modest increase in business formation of 1.16%, although the level expressed as a share of total businesses remains below that observed during the 2020–2023 period.
At the same time, the number of bankruptcies declined by 2.28% over the fourth quarter of 2024.
Rounds of Venture Capital financing:
In the first quarter of 2025, both the number of venture capital rounds and the total investment volume continued to decline, following peaks in 2022 and 2021, respectively. Capital markets recorded their lowest level of activity in half a decade, in terms of both deals counted and the total capital raised.
However, preliminary data from the second quarter of 2025 indicate an increase in venture capital raised. This may suggest that the downward trend in the venture capital market is beginning to reverse.
Attractiveness
Net migration
Oslo has experienced positive net migration throughout the available data period. However, the first quarter of 2025 marks the lowest recorded level of net immigration to the region when excluding the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021.
The fall in arrivals is primarily driven by changes in international migration relative to its long-run average, with both emigration increasing and immigration declining, resulting in a 51% drop in net international arrivals compared to the previous quarter.
Possible reasons for the weak inflow include stricter regulations for Ukrainian refugees, a reduced number of international students, and a weak Norwegian currency, which makes moving to Norway less attractive when income is measured in migrants’ local currencies.
Tourism & Visitor economy
The number of overnight stays in the region has increased steadily since 2020, reaching a peak in the third quarter of 2024.
In the first quarter of 2025, there were fewer registered overnight stays than in the previous quarter, but this is mainly due to seasonal variation. Compared to the same quarter the year before, the number of overnight stays has increased by 8 %.
The statistics only cover the period after 2020, making it difficult to assess developments prior to the post-pandemic reopening.
House price-to-income ratio:
In the first quarter of 2025, the median house price in the Oslo region was 6.9 times higher than the average annual gross income—a decrease from 7.0 in the first quarter of 2024. Both house prices and incomes have increased, but wages rose by about 1 percentage point more than house prices.
The ratio peaked in 2021–2022 after several years (2016–2022) during which house prices grew faster than wages. Since then, stabilised prices and rising incomes have led to a gradual decline
Disposable income after consumption:
Since the third quarter of 2024, nominal incomes have grown faster than the price level, leading to an increase in both nominal disposable income and purchasing power. In the first quarter of 2025, disposable income after consumption increased by 17 %, reaching a new peak.