Employees
18. Dec 2025
29,900 employees in November — 200 more than last year
The number of employees continues to increase, but in recent years the growth has weakened. This is shown by the trend, which describes developments after removing seasonal variations and other random changes.
In November there were 29,889 employees in the Faroe Islands. This is 198 employees (0.7%) more employees than the same month last year.
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In November, there were about 15,200 male and 14,700 female employees. The increase was larger among women with 111 (0.8%) more employees. The males had an increase of 87 (0,6%) employees.
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Seven per cent do not have long-term residency
To qualify as a long-term resident, an individual must have resided in the Faroes for either half of their lifetime or for seven consecutive years at some point in their life. In November there were 2,084 employees who did not have long-term residency. This is 7% of the total. This year, there were 39 employees (2%) more than November last year.
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The largest group of employees without long-term residency have Asian citizenship. These are especially from Southeast Asia. This group has been steadily increasing in recent years, and over the last four years their share has grown from 20 to 40 per cent.
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Both male and female employees without long-term residency most often come from Asia, which in total are 812 employees. Of these, the distribution is 60 per cent men and 40 per cent women. The largest gender difference among employees without long-term residency is among those from Eastern Europe, where men are three times as many as women.
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The economic activity with the most employees without long-term residency is "Manufacturing", where there were just over 600 employees (30%) in November. In more detail, it can be seen that most of these—three quarters—worked in "Manufacture of food products", and 250 of these in "Processing of demersal fish". These 250 account for one third of the total number of employees who work in "Processing of demersal fish".
Measured by the number of employees without long-term residency, the second-largest economic activity is "Accommodation and food service activities" with 12%, followed by Construction with 11%. In "Construction", the number of employees has decreased compared with last year.
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About the employee statistics
The employee statistics covers persons aged 13 years or older, resident in the Faroe Islands, who in the month receive wages subject to A-tax (taxes deducted directly from income), corresponding to 4 hours per month or more through the pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) tax system. In addition, persons in temporary absence (e.g., illness and parental leave) are also included, even if they receive wages or not.
Statistics on employees and jobs follow the guidelines in the manuals on employees and jobs from the International Labour Organization (ILO) under the United Nations.
Definitions:
- Employee (main job) is the total number of persons in a job. The job is based on where the person receives the highest pay from. A person is counted only once.
- Long-term residency is intended to describe whether a person has lived a certain number of years in the Faroe Islands at some point in their life. A person has long-term residency in the Faroe Islands if they have either lived in the Faroe Islands for half of their life, or for a total of 7 out of 10 consecutive years at some point in their life. See more about long-term residency on the theme page.
- Citizenship is grouped into continents and areas. If the citizenship includes several countries within the same realm, the citizenship is based on the country that has the most inhabitants in the realm. For example, Greenland is grouped under Northern Europe because they have Danish citizenship, even though geographically it belongs to North America.
- Employer's main activity is based on where the wages paid come from. An employer is classified into a main (economic) activity according to where the greatest activity is registered. In cases where a person receives wages from several employers, the main activity is assigned to the employer that has paid the largest amount. The main activity is not necessarily the same as the actual activity the person works in, since an employer may have several activities. The main activity is based on the international classification NACE rev. 2. The first and second levels of the classification are directly comparable. At the third level, a few selected sub-activities are further split in order to describe Faroese conditions as well as possible.