Kjersti Stenseng is not new in the Norwegian government, as she leaves her post as Minister of Local Government to become the Minister of Labour and Social Inclusion.
Stenseng takes over from Tonje Brenna, who has been a government minister for the past four years – first as Minister of Education and then as Minister of Labour and Social Inclusion.
Read this article in Norwegian on our Arbeidsliv i Norden.
Kjersti Stenseng
Born in 1974
From Kvam in Nord-Fron municipality in Gudbrandsdalen.
Party Secretary in the Labour Party between 2015 and 2024.
Experience as state secretary and political advisor at the Ministry of Culture
When Stenseng was handed the keys to her new ministry from Brenna, she said that she considered it one of her most important tasks to get more young people into the labour market and reduce the number receiving state support.
“We have to get those on the outside to come in. We need those resources in the labour market,” Stenseng said.
One of her tasks will be to follow up on the government’s Ungdomsløft (“Youth Boost”) initiative.
“Having a job to go to is an important part of life,” Stenseng said.
Jonas Gahr Støre continues as Prime Minister after Norway’s general elections on 8 September, but the new parliamentary makeup makes his job more difficult.
He now relies on the Centre Party, Socialist Left, Communist Red and the Greens for a parliamentary majority. The government reshuffle is seen as an attempt to strengthen the Labour Party’s parliamentary group in order to facilitate this.
A Labour Party woman
It has been said that Stenseng was born into politics. She definitely grew up surrounded by Labour Party people and traditions.
Her father, Gunnar Tore Stenseng, was a Labour mayor in Kvam in Nord-Fron in Gudbrandsdalen between 1984 and 2007.
Kjersti Stenseng has risen through the party ranks. She has had a range of positions both locally and at county level.
She also has experience as a state secretary and political adviser at the Ministry of Culture. However, she has only served as a deputy MP.
Stenseng was Labour’s party secretary for ten years from 2015 until she joined the government in February 2025, when the Centre Party left the coalition, as a state secretary at the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development.
She had already announced her resignation as party secretary ahead of the upcoming national congress in April.
“I have decided not to stand for re-election. It is good for the party to bring in new forces, new energy and new ideas into the role of party secretary,” she told NRK at the time.
At the time, there was considerable internal turmoil in the party over whether party leader and Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre was the right person to lead the party forward and into a new election campaign.
Focus on equality
In Stenseng’s profile on the Labour Party’s website, it is noted that she has always been committed to promoting women’s place in society. She believes that without full equality, democracy remains incomplete.
“Nevertheless, the issue that concerns Kjersti the most is facilitating the creation of new green jobs,” according to the website profile.
