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Published: 20 August 2019

Number of employed persons almost unchanged, unemployment decreased from one year ago

According to Statistics Finland’s Labour Force Survey, the number of employed persons was slightly lower in July than one year earlier. There were 14,000 fewer unemployed than in July 2018. The trend of the employment rate was 72.4 per cent and the trend of the unemployment rate was 6.6 per cent.

Employment rate and trend of employment rate 2009/07–2019/07, persons aged 15–64

Employment rate and trend of employment rate 2009/07–2019/07, persons aged 15–64

Unemployment and employment vary quite considerably by month and the change from the observation of the previous month mainly describes the seasonal aspect rather than the trend in development. Thus, the latest statistical data are compared to the corresponding period of the year before. By contrast, the figures of the trend series that are adjusted for seasonal and random variation are mutually comparable and phenomena associated with long-term development and cyclical changes are thus more easily observable from the trend of the time series.

The trend usually changes somewhat when the data of the following month are included in the time series. This preliminary nature of trend figures should be taken into account when making conclusions. The figures reported in this release are not adjusted for seasonal variation unless separately mentioned that they concern the trend. Find out more about the trend here .

In July, the trend of the employment rate was 72.4 per cent and the trend of the unemployment rate was 6.6 per cent. Based on the seasonally adjusted data for July, both the trend of the employment rate and the trend of the unemployment rate have remained unchanged in recent months.

In July 2019, the number of employed persons was 2,628,000 (margin of error ±35,000), which was three thousand less than a year earlier. There were 2,000 fewer employed men and 1,000 fewer employed women than in July 2018.

The employment rate , that is, the proportion of the employed among persons aged 15 to 64, stood at 74.5 per cent in July, having been 74.1 per cent one year earlier. From the previous year’s July, the employment rate of men aged 15 to 64 rose by 0.5 percentage points to 75.9 per cent and the employment rate of women rose by 0.3 percentage points to 73.1 per cent.

According to Statistics Finland's Labour Force Survey, there were 169,000 unemployed in July 2019 (margin of error ±18,000), i.e. 14,000 fewer than in July of the year before. The number of unemployed men was 86,000 and that of women 83,000.

At 6.0 per cent, the unemployment rate was 0.5 percentage points lower in July than one year earlier. The unemployment rate of men was 5.9 per cent, or 0.6 percentage points lower than one year earlier. The unemployment rate for women fell by 0.3 percentage points to 6.2 per cent.

In July, there were a total of 612,000 young people aged 15 to 24 . Of them, 342,000 were employed and 35,000 unemployed. The number of young people in the active population, i.e. the employed and unemployed in total, was 378,000. In July, the unemployment rate for young people aged 15 to 24, that is, the proportion of the unemployed among the labour force, stood at 9.3 per cent, which was 0.1 percentage points lower than one year previously. The trend of the unemployment rate among young people was 16.0 per cent. The share of unemployed young people aged 15 to 24 among the population in the same age group was 5.8 per cent.

There were 1,330,000 persons in the inactive population in July 2019, which was 21,000 more than one year earlier. Of the inactive population, 110,000 persons were in disguised unemployment , which was 9,000 fewer than in July 2018.

Changes in employment 2018/07 – 2019/07 according to Statistics Finland’s Labour Force Survey, population aged 15 to 74

  Year/Month Change
2018/07 2019/07 2018/07 - 2019/07
1000 persons Per cent, %
Population total 4 123 4 126 0,1
Active population total 2 814 2 796 –0,6
Employed 2 631 2 628 –0,1
– employees 2 302 2 284 –0,8
– self-employed persons and unpaid family workers 329 343 4,3
Unemployed 183 169 –7,9
Inactive population 1 309 1 330 1,6
– persons in disguised unemployment 119 110 –7,7
  Per cent, % Percentage points
Employment rate, persons aged 15–64 74,1 74,5 0,4
Unemployment rate 6,5 6,0 –0,5
Activity rate 68,3 67,8 –0,5
Unrounded figures are used in the Change column.
The data comply with the ILO/EU definition.

Employment Service Statistics of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment

At the end of July 2019, there were altogether 269,000 persons registered in accordance with the Employment Office Regulations as job seekers at the employment and economic development offices . The number of unemployed job seekers was 15,000 lower than in July 2018.

Unemployment fell in July from the corresponding period in 2018 in the areas of all Employment and Economic Development Centres: most in North Karelia (-11%), Häme (-10%), South Savo (-10%), Southeast Finland (-9%) and Southwest Finland (-8%). At the end of July, the number of persons fully laid off registered at the employment and economic development offices was 11,000, which was the same number as twelve months earlier.

The number of persons engaged in services included in the activation rate totalled 101,000 at the end of July, which was 5,000 fewer than in last year's July. Altogether, 3.6 per cent of the labour force was covered by labour market policy services.

There were 37,000 unemployed job seekers aged under 25 registered at the employment and economic development offices. Their number was 3,000 lower than in last year's July. During this July, 53,000 new vacancies were reported to the employment and economic development offices, which is 5,000 more than in July last year.

Changes 2018/07–2019/07 according to the Employment Service Statistics of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment

  Year/Month Change
2018/07 2019/07 2018/07 - 2019/07
1000 persons Per cent, %
Unemployed job seekers 284 269 –5,3
– unemployed over a year 77 65 –15,4
Services, total 106 101 –4,4
– employed 25 24 –6,4
– in labour market training, in training 16 17 3,8
– engaged in work/training trials 8 7 –17,8
– as a job alternation substitute, in rehabilitative work, self-motivated studies supported by unemployment benefit 56 54 –3,9
New vacancies at employment and economic development offices 48 53 9,4
Unrounded figures are used in the Change column.

Contact information for the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment:
Petri Syvänen , tel. +358 29 504 8050, Employment bulletin

Links

Labour Force Survey tables in databases

About seasonally adjusted trend

The accuracy of figures and the margins of error are explained in the quality description of the Labour Force Survey .

Comparison between the employment statistics of Statistics Finland and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment

Job vacancy survey

The latest seasonally adjusted employment figures published by the EU and
the latest data on open job vacancies published by the EU can be found on
Eurostat's home page http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat .


Source: Labour force survey 2019, July. Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Tatu Leskinen 029 551 3285, Kirsi Toivonen 029 551 3535, tyovoimatutkimus@stat.fi

Director in charge: Jari Tarkoma

Publication in pdf-format (450.5 kB)

Tables

Tables in databases

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Appendix tables

Figures
Quality descriptions

Updated 20.08.2019

Referencing instructions:

Official Statistics of Finland (OSF): Labour force survey [e-publication].
ISSN=1798-7857. July 2019. Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 19.3.2024].
Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/tyti/2019/07/tyti_2019_07_2019-08-20_tie_001_en.html