Norway oil minister says most layoffs probably behind us

OSLO (Reuters) - Most of the job cutting in the vast Norwegian oil industry is over and the market could turn more positive in six months, the Norwegian oil minister said on Wednesday.

Tens of thousands of petroleum jobs in Norway have been lost due to the collapse in global oil prices and the reduction in investment which has ensued.

"There are six months yet to go before the crisis starts to change to a more uplifting mood," Tord Lien said in a speech at a subsea conference on Wednesday.

"The point is that I expect we have finished most of the reductions in capacity but it will still be tough times ahead of us," Lien told Reuters afterwards.

"I think we are getting closer to a rebalancing but saying we are over (the difficult times) in six months is not quite precise," he added.

Unemployment in Norway increased to 4.8 percent for the three months from December to February from 3.9 percent in same period a year earlier, Norway Statistics reported.

(Reporting By Stine Jacobsen; writing by Ole Petter Skonnord; editing by Jason Neely)