Number of employed persons decreased and unemployment grew in March 2024 from one year ago

Number of employed persons decreased from the previous year

In March 2024, the number of employed aged 15 to 74 was 2,558,000 (margin of error ±29,000), which was 52,000 fewer than a year earlier. There were 17,000 fewer employed men and 35,000 fewer employed women than in March last year.

In March, the employment rate, that is, the proportion of the employed among persons aged 20 to 64, stood at 76.1 per cent, having been 77.7 per cent in this age group one year earlier. The employment rate of men aged 20 to 64 fell by 1.2 percentage points to 76.1 per cent and that of women went down by 2.1 percentage points to 76.0 per cent from one year ago.

The employment rate of persons aged 20 to 69 fell by 1.5 percentage points from last year's March to 70.6 per cent.

Unemployment grew both among men and women compared to last year

According to Statistics Finland's Labour Force Survey, there were 254,000 unemployed (margin of error ±22,000) aged 15 to 74 in March 2024, which was 60,000 more than one year earlier. The number of unemployed men was 149,000 and that of unemployed women 105,000.

In March, the unemployment rate of persons aged 15 to 74, or the proportion of the unemployed among the labour force stood at 9.0 per cent, having been 6.9 per cent one year earlier. The unemployment rate of men stood at 10.2 per cent, which was 2.2 percentage points more than one year previously. The unemployment rate of women stood at 7.7 per cent, which was 2.0 percentage points higher than one year before.

In March, the unemployment rate of people aged 15 to 24 stood at 26.0 per cent, which was 7.9 percentage points more than one year earlier. The trend of the unemployment rate among young people was 18.3 per cent. The share of unemployed young people aged 15 to 24 among the population in the same age group was 12.7 per cent.

Number of people in the inactive population increased from one year ago

There were 1,336,000 persons aged 15 to 74 in the inactive population in March 2024, which was 16,000 more than one year earlier. There were 4,000 fewer men and 20,000 more women in the inactive population 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.