Service sector main provider of employment in August

Vacancies rose in the service sector by close on 60 000 in the year to August, the Labour Force Survey of Statistics Finland indicates. The number of vacancies increased by a few thousand in processing industries, while in primary production they decreased. The total number of employed increased by 46 000 over a year.

The number of vacancies for women increased by a good 30 000 from August 1995. Men's employment improved by 15 000. The highest rise in the number of vacancies was recorded for the provinces of Uusimaa and Häme.

Seasonally adjusted employment has remained virtually unchanged since April.

Table

Unemployment stood at 403 000 in August, which is about the same as in August of the year before. The rate of unemployment, at 15.9 per cent, was 0.3 percentage points lower than a year ago.

The unemployment rate of women was still higher than that of men. In the year to August the unemployment rate of men fell by 0.7 percentage points to 15.6 per cent, while that of women, in turn, grew by 0.1 percentage points to 16.2. Seasonally adjusted unemployment remained at the same level as in July.

Unemployment amongst the young fell by 5 000 on the year before. There were 62 000 unemployed young people in August.

105 000 of those unemployed in August derived from government and other services, and 60 000 from manufacturing. The rate of unemployment in construction was 19.8 per cent.

Higher unemployment figures in the Ministry of Labour

The data for the Labour Force Survey of Statistics Finland were collected by interviewing about 10 000 Finns of working age. The data relate to the period August 12-18. The Labour Force Survey is a panel survey based on a sample, in which the same person is surveyed five times over a period of eighteen months.

The Labour Force Survey provides data both on employment and unemployment. It is based on the recommendations of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and it is comparable with the corresponding statistics of other countries.

The Ministry of Labour also publishes statistics on unemployment. The data on unemployed job applicants are from the last working day of the month. Owing to differences in methods and definitions, the unemployment figures of Statistics Finland and the Ministry of Labour are not comparable. However, the figures generally change in a parallel manner so that the figures of the Ministry of Labour exceed those of Statistics Finland by a few tens of thousands. At the end of August there were 439 600 unemployed persons in the Ministry of Labour's register of job applicants.

When assessing the figures of the Labour Force Survey, the confidence interval, which is due to the standard error of the sample survey, also has to be taken into account. This interval was ± 0.8 percentage points in the unemployment rate in August.

Source: Labour Force Survey, August 1996. Statistics Finland
Further Information: Tapio Oksanen, tel. +358 0 1734 3228,
and Hannu Siitonen, tel. +358 0 1734 3225