Labour force survey 2026, 2nd quarter

Fewer employed persons and more unemployed persons in the second quarter of 2026 compared to one year ago

21/07/2026 release

According to Statistics Finland's Labour Force Survey, the number of employed persons aged 15 to 74 was 29,000 lower in the second quarter of 2026 than in the corresponding quarter of 2025. There were 39,000 more unemployed persons in the same age group.

Population aged 15 to 74 by labour force status in the first quarter of 2025 and 2026

	2025/Q2, 1000 persons	2026/Q2, 1000 persons	Change, 2025/Q2 - 2026/Q2, 1000 persons	Change, 2025/Q2 - 2026/Q2, %
Population total	4 165	4 166	1	0,0
Active population total	2 927	2 937	10	0,3
- employed	2 629	2 600	-29	-1,1
- unemployed	297	336	39	13,0
Inactive population	1 239	1 230	-9	-0,7

Key selections

The average number of employed persons in the second quarter of 2026 was 2,600,000, which was 29,000 fewer than in the corresponding period of 2025.
There were 16,000 fewer employed men and 13,000 fewer employed women than in the second quarter of 2025.
The number of employed persons decreased most in construction (F) and increased most in administrative and support service activities (N).
In April to June 2026, the number of hours worked by employed persons decreased by 1.1 per cent from the previous year.

Number of employed persons fell from the previous year

In the second quarter of 2026, the average number of employed persons aged 15 to 74 was 2,600,000 (margin of error ±18,000), which was 29,000 fewer than in the corresponding period of 2025.

The number of hours worked by employed persons was 1,011.9 million hours in the second quarter of 2026, which was 1.1 per cent lower than one year ago.

In the second quarter of 2026, the number of employed persons decreased most in construction (F) and increased most in administrative and support service activities (N) compared to the corresponding period of the previous year.

Share of part-time employed increased

In the second quarter of 2026, the number of part-time employed persons was 493,000, which was 18.9 per cent of all employed persons. The share was 0.4 percentage points higher than in the year before.

Altogether 148,000 or 30.0 per cent of them worked part-time because full-time work was not available. There were 6,000 more persons belonging to this group than in the corresponding period one year before.

More unemployed persons than one year ago

The average number of unemployed persons aged 15 to 74 in the second quarter of 2026 was 336,000 (margin of error ±15,000), which was 39,000 more than in April to June 2025. The unemployment rate in the second quarter of 2026 was 11.4 per cent, having been 10.2 per cent one year earlier.

In April to June 2026, the number of persons in the inactive population was 1,230,000, which was 9,000 fewer than one year earlier.