Number of both employed and unemployed persons grew in February 2026 from one year ago

Number of employed men grew from the previous year

In February 2026, the number of employed persons aged 15 to 74 was 2,553,000 (margin of error ±30,000), which was 24,000 more than one year earlier. There were 29,000 more employed men and 4,000 fewer employed women than in February last year.

In February, the non-seasonally adjusted employment rate, that is, the proportion of the employed among persons aged 20 to 64, stood at 75.3 per cent, having been 74.5 per cent in this age group one year earlier. The employment rate of men aged 20 to 64 grew by 1.3 percentage points to 76.1 per cent and the employment rate of women grew by 0.1 percentage points to 74.3 per cent from one year ago.

The employment rate of persons aged 20 to 69 grew by 0.6 percentage points from last year's February to 69.9 per cent.

Unemployment grew compared to the previous year

In February 2026, the number of unemployed persons aged 15 to 74 was 312,000 (margin of error ±25,000), which was 49,000 more than one year earlier. The number of unemployed men was 180,000 and that of unemployed women 133,000.

In February, the non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of persons aged 15 to 74, or the proportion of the unemployed among the labour force stood at 10.9 per cent, having been 9.4 per cent one year earlier. The unemployment rate of men stood at 11.9 per cent, which was 1.8 percentage points higher than one year before. The unemployment rate of women stood at 9.8 per cent, which was 1.1 percentage points higher than in the previous year.

In February, the share of the unemployed aged 15 to 24 among the labour force stood at 24.6 per cent, which was 0.7 percentage points higher than one year earlier. The trend of the unemployment rate among young people was 22.9 per cent. The share of unemployed young people aged 15 to 24 among the population in the same age group was 12.1 per cent.

Number of people in the inactive population lower than one year ago

There were 1,309,000 persons aged 15 to 74 in the inactive population in February 2026, which was 64,000 fewer than one year earlier. There were 56,000 fewer men and 7,000 fewer 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. For that reason, 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

KEHA Centre’s Employment Bulletin