Norway: Disagreement over the significance of seniority in downsizing after new Supreme Court ruling

There is much uncertainty over the significance of seniority in downsizing in companies bound by collective agreements. While one side contests that seniority is the “main rule” with regards to selection, employer representatives hold that it is only a “mandatory point of consideration”, and thus not given any preference. At this point, the only certain thing is that collective agreement-bound-employers need to at least consider seniority and use it as a criterion in redundancy selection. The Supreme Court also stressed the usage of criteria that are based on subjective assessments of the employee’s performance, and stated that if employers use such criteria, applicable law requires sufficient documentation on the assessments that are carried out.