Employment

• The employer cannot demand the applicant to give information concerning political, religious or cultural questions or if he/she is a member of any employees' organisations. Also questions concerning homosexual personality or partnership are prohibited. If such information is related to the character of the occupation and of importance for the work, the applicant may be asked to give information about this.
• If a trial period is agreed upon, this agreement must be written and the trial period shall not last longer than 6 months.

For work in a public enterprise, the Administrative Act applies in addition to the Working Environment Act. For employees of the national authorities the Civil Servants Act may also apply. The Act on Equal Status between the Sexes (Equal Status Act) also contains regulations concerning appointments.

Temporary appointment
The main rule is that the employee shall be permanently appointed. Temporarily appointed working agreements are agreements that are valid for a stated period of time or a stated work that is of an incidental nature. If someone is appointed temporarily, it is a premise that the conditions for temporarily appointed working agreements are present.

Temporary appointment is allowed in the following situations:

• When the character of the work is of a temporary nature or the work is separated from the ordinary work that normally is done in the enterprise. This may be season work, e.g. within the food industry and tourism.
  Temporary appointments for picking soft and hard fruits, guiding tourists, performing as a Santa Claus in December or serve at outdoors restaurants in the summer, are allowed. 
• Temporarily appointed workers must not perform the ordinary running of the enterprise.
  General variation in the market, e.g. the flow of orders, will not be a reason for appointing someone temporarily. But if unexpected situations occur that will cause temporary increase in the quantity of work, temporary appointments may be allowed.
• Working as a trainee or undertaking education in a profession. 
• Working as a substitute: – The stand-in must be hired for replacement of specific persons and incidents, e.g. illness, holidays or leaves of absence. 
• Participants in unemployment programmes run by or in co-operation with the labour market authorities. 
• The company manager may be appointed in terms of years. 
• Some jobs within sports – sportsmen, trainers, referees and other leaders within the sports.

Work within art, research or sports with tariff settlements agreed upon between a national employees organisation (trade union) and the employer.

Working agreement in writing
There shall always be a written working agreement, irrespectively of any time limitation on the scope of the work.

The Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority can give advice and information regarding rules and regulation related to the Working Environment Act.