Employment increased in January

According to Statistics Finland’s Labour Force Survey, the number of employed people was 35,000 higher in January 2019 than one year ago. The number of unemployed persons in January was 181,000, which was 57,000 lower than one year ago. The trend of the unemployment rate was 6.4 per cent and the trend of the employment rate 72.6 per cent.

Unemployment rate and trend of unemployment rate 2009/01–2019/01, persons aged 15–74

Unemployment and employment vary quite considerably 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. This preliminary nature of trend figures should be taken into account when making conclusions. The figures reported in this release are not adjusted for seasonal variation unless separately mentioned that they concern the trend. Find out more about the trend here .

In January 2019, the number of employed persons was 2,498,000 (margin of error ą34,000), which was 35,000 higher than a year earlier. There were 15,000 more employed men and 20,000 more employed women than in January 2018.

In January, the employment rate , that is, the proportion of the employed among persons aged 15 to 64, stood at 70.6 per cent, having been 69.3 per cent one year earlier. From January last year, the employment rate for men aged 15 to 64 increased by 1.0 percentage points to 71.0 per cent and women’s employment rate by 1.8 percentage points to 70.2 per cent. Adjusted for seasonal and random variation, the trend of the employment rate was 72.6 per cent.

According to Statistics Finland's Labour Force Survey, there were 181,000 unemployed in January 2019 (margin of error ą18,000), i.e. 57,000 fewer than in January of the year before. The number of unemployed men was 98,000 and that of women 83,000.

At 6.8 per cent, the unemployment rate in January was 2.1 percentage points lower than one year earlier. The unemployment rate of men decreased by 1.3 percentage points to 7.1 per cent, and that of women by 2.9 percentage points to 6.4 per cent from the year before. The trend of the unemployment rate was 6.4 per cent.

In January, there were a total of 617,000 young people aged 15 to 24 . Of them, 230,000 were employed and 45,000 were unemployed. The number of young people in the active population, i.e. the employed and unemployed in total, was 275,000. In January, the unemployment rate for young people aged 15 to 24, that is, the proportion of the unemployed among the labour force, stood at 16.3 per cent, which was 1.3 percentage points lower than one year previously. The trend of the unemployment rate among young people was 15.7 per cent. The share of unemployed young people aged 15 to 24 among the population in the same age group was 7.3 per cent.

There were 1,449,000 persons in the inactive population in January 2019, which was 24,000 more than one year earlier. Of the inactive population, 124,000 persons were in disguised unemployment , which was 16,000 fewer than in January 2018.

Changes in employment 2018/01 – 2019/01 according to Statistics Finland’s Labour Force Survey, population aged 15 to 74

	Year/Month		Change
	2018/01	2019/01	2018/01 - 2019/01
	1000 persons		Per cent, %
Population total	4 125	4 127	0,1
Active population total	2 700	2 679	–0,8
Employed	2 462	2 498	1,4
– employees	2 147	2 152	0,2
– self-employed persons and unpaid family workers	315	345	9,6
Unemployed	238	181	–24,0
Inactive population	1 425	1 449	1,7
– persons in disguised unemployment	140	124	–11,5
	Per cent, %		Percentage points
Employment rate, persons aged 15–64	69,3	70,6	1,4
Unemployment rate	8,8	6,8	–2,1
Activity rate	65,5	64,9	–0,6
Unrounded figures are used in the Change column. The data comply with the ILO/EU definition.

Employment Service Statistics of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment

At the end of January 2019, there were altogether 251,000 persons registered in accordance with the Employment Office Regulations as unemployed job seekers at the employment and economic development offices . The number of unemployed job seekers was 34,000 lower than in January of the previous year.

Unemployment fell in January from the corresponding period in 2018 in the areas of all Employment and Economic Development Centres: most in Pirkanmaa (-17%), North Ostrobothnia (-16%), Ostrobothnia (-15%), Kainuu (-15%), North Karelia (-15%) and Lapland (-15%). At the end of January, the number of fully laid off persons registered at the employment and economic development offices was 15,000, which was 2,000 fewer than twelve months earlier.

The number of persons engaged in services included in the activation rate totalled 122,000 at the end of January, which was 1,000 more than in January of the previous year. Altogether, 4.6 per cent of the labour force was covered by labour market policy services.

There were 32,000 unemployed job seekers aged under 25 registered at the employment and economic development offices. Their number was 3,000 lower than in January of the year before. During this January, 87,000 new vacancies were reported to the employment and economic development offices, which was 12,000 more than in January 2018.

Changes 2018/01–2019/01 according to the Employment Service Statistics of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment

	Year/Month		Change
	2018/01	2019/01	2018/01 - 2019/01
	1000 persons		Per cent, %
Unemployed job seekers	286	251	–12,0
– unemployed over a year	90	66	–26,5
Services, total	121	122	0,7
– employed	24	24	0,1
– in labour market training, in training	20	21	5,0
– engaged in work/training trials	11	10	–12,7
– as a job alternation substitute, in rehabilitative work, self-motivated studies supported by unemployment benefit	66	68	1,8
New vacancies at employment and economic development offices	75	87	16,6
Unrounded figures are used in the Change column.

Contact information for the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment:
Petri Syvänen tel. +358 29 504 8050, www.tem.fi/en/employment-bulletin

Links

Labour Force Survey tables in databases

About seasonally adjusted trend

The accuracy of figures and the margins of error are explained in the quality description of the Labour Force Survey .

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

Job vacancy survey

Latest seasonally adjusted employment figures published by the EU and

Latest data on open job vacancies published by the EU can be found on

Eurostat’s home page http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat .

Source: Labour force survey 2019, January. Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Henri Lukkarinen 029 551 3704, Kirsi Toivonen 029 551 3535, tyovoimatutkimus@stat.fi

Director in charge: Jari Tarkoma

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Tables

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Appendix tables

Figures

Quality descriptions

Quality Description: Labour force survey (26.2.2019)

Updated 26.02.2019

Referencing instructions:

Official Statistics of Finland (OSF): Labour force survey [e-publication].
ISSN=1798-7857. January 2019. Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 16.12.2024].
Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/tyti/2019/01/tyti_2019_01_2019-02-26_tie_001_en.html