Number of employed persons slightly higher in February 2023 than one year earlier

Number of employed persons grew a little from the year before

In February 2023, the number of employed aged 15 to 74 was 2,582,000 (margin of error ±35,000), which was 12,000 higher than a year earlier. There were 8,000 less employed men and 20,000 more employed women than in February 2022.

In February, the employment rate for those aged 20 to 64, that is, the proportion of the employed among persons aged 20 to 64, stood at 77,7 per cent, having been the same in this age group one year earlier. From last year’s February, the employment rate of men aged 20 to 64 fell by 0.2 percentage points to 77.3 per cent and that of women rose by 0.2 percentage points to 78.1 per cent.

The employment rate of people aged 20 to 69 was 71.5 per cent, having been 71.6 per cent one year before.

Number of unemployed persons almost the same as a year ago

According to Statistics Finland's Labour Force Survey, there were 186,000 unemployed (margin of error ±23,000) aged 15 to 74 in February 2023, which was 2,000 more than one year earlier. The number of unemployed men was 112,000 and that of women 74,000.

In February, the unemployment rate for persons aged 15 to 74, that is, the proportion of the unemployed among the labour force stood at 6.7 per cent, having been the same one year earlier. The unemployment rate for men was 7.9 per cent, which was 0.5 percentage points higher than one year before. The unemployment rate of women was 5.5 per cent, having been 5.9 per cent in the year before.

In February, the unemployment rate for people aged 15 to 24 stood at 13.2 per cent, which was 1.3 percentage points lower than one year previously. The trend of the unemployment rate among young people was 14.1 per cent. The share of unemployed young people aged 15 to 24 among the population in the same age group was 6.1 per cent.

Number of people in the inactive population decreased

There were 1,357,000 persons aged 15 to 74 in the inactive population in February 2023, which was 9,000 fewer than one year earlier.

Seasonally adjusted trend

Employment and unemployment vary quite much 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. Therefore, only the last published time series should be used when using the trend figures. The preliminary nature of the latest trend figures should be considered when making conclusions. The fall in employment in spring 2020 was interpreted as a level shift in the seasonal adjustment model. The figures reported in this release are not adjusted for seasonal variation unless separately mentioned that they concern the trend.

Links

News 9 Feb 2023: Age group of employment rate changes

Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment’s Employment bulletin

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