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Published: 24 September 2019

Employment increased in August from one year ago

According to Statistics Finland's Labour Force Survey, there were 32,000 more employed people and 17,000 fewer unemployed people in August than one year earlier. The trend of the employment rate was 72.5 per cent and the trend of the unemployment rate was 6.7 per cent.

Employment rate and trend of employment rate 2009/08–2019/08, persons aged 15–64

Employment rate and trend of employment rate 2009/08–2019/08, persons aged 15–64

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 considered 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 .

The trend of the employment rent was 72.5 per cent in August, having been 72.4 per cent in the month before. The trend of the unemployment rate remained unchanged from July, at 6.7 per cent.

In August 2019, the number of employed persons was 2,598,000 (margin of error ±34,000), which was 32,000 higher than a year earlier. There were 5,000 more employed men and 27,000 more employed women than in August 2018.

In August 2019, the employment rate , that is, the proportion of the employed among persons aged 15 to 64, stood at 73.5 per cent, having been 72.6 per cent one year earlier. From the previous year’s August, the employment rate of men aged 15 to 64 declined by 0.2 percentage points to 74.2 per cent and that of women rose by 2.0 percentage points to 72.8 per cent.

According to Statistics Finland's Labour Force Survey, there were 170,000 unemployed in August 2019 (margin of error ±18,000), i.e. 17,000 fewer than one year earlier. The number of unemployed men was 94,000 and that of women 76,000.

At 6.1 per cent, the unemployment rate was 0.6 percentage points lower in August than one year earlier. The unemployment rate for men was 6.5 per cent or 0.2 percentage points higher than one year earlier. The unemployment rate for women fell by 1.6 percentage points to 5.7 per cent.

In August, there were a total of 612,000 young people aged 15 to 24 . Of them, 275,000 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 320,000. In August, the unemployment rate for young people aged 15 to 24, that is, the proportion of the unemployed among the labour force, stood at 14.0 per cent, which was 0.4 percentage points higher than one year previously. The trend of the unemployment rate among young people was 17.0 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 1,360,000 persons in the inactive population in August 2019, which was 11,000 fewer than one year earlier. Of the inactive population, 112,000 persons were in disguised unemployment , which was 6,000 fewer than in August 2018.

Changes in employment 2018/08 – 2019/08 according to Statistics Finland’s Labour Force Survey, population aged 15 to 74

  Year/Month Change
2018/08 2019/08 2018/08 - 2019/08
1000 persons Per cent, %
Population total 4 124 4 128 0,1
Active population total 2 753 2 768 0,5
Employed 2 566 2 598 1,2
– employees 2 216 2 272 2,5
– self-employed persons and unpaid family workers 351 326 –6,9
Unemployed 186 170 –9,1
Inactive population 1 371 1 360 –0,8
– persons in disguised unemployment 118 112 –5,0
  Per cent, % Percentage points
Employment rate, persons aged 15–64 72,6 73,5 0,9
Unemployment rate 6,8 6,1 –0,6
Activity rate 66,8 67,1 0,3
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 August 2019, there were altogether 233,000 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 11,000 lower than in August last year.

In August, unemployment decreased in the areas of all Employment and Economic Development Centres except for Pirkanmaa (2%) compared to the corresponding period in 2018: most in Häme (-9%), South Ostrobothnia (-8%), Southwest Finland (-8%), North Karelia (-8%) and Kainuu (-8%). At the end of August, the number of fully laid off persons registered at the employment and economic development offices was 7,000, which was 1,000 more than twelve months earlier.

The number of persons engaged in services included in the activation rate totalled 112,000 at the end of August, which was 6,000 less than in August of the year before. Altogether, 4.1 per cent of the labour force was covered by labour market policy services.

There were 30,000 unemployed job seekers aged under 25 registered at the employment and economic development offices. Their number was 2,000 lower than in last year's August. During this August, 67,000 new vacancies were reported to the employment and economic development offices, which was 8,000 more than in the previous year's August.

Changes 2018/08–2019/08 according to the Employment Service Statistics of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment

  Year/Month Change
2018/08 2019/08 2018/08 - 2019/08
1000 persons Per cent, %
Unemployed job seekers 243 233 –4,4
– unemployed over a year 73 63 –13,6
Services, total 119 112 –5,3
– employed 26 24 –5,8
– in labour market training, in training 19 19 1,8
– engaged in work/training trials 9 7 –18,5
– as a job alternation substitute, in rehabilitative work, self-motivated studies supported by unemployment benefit 65 61 –5,5
New vacancies at employment and economic development offices 59 67 14,3
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, 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

The latest seasonally adjusted employment figures published by the EU and the latest data 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, August. Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Pertti Taskinen 029 551 2690, Ulla Hannula 029 551 2924, tyovoimatutkimus@stat.fi

Director in charge: Jari Tarkoma

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Tables

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Appendix tables

Figures
Quality descriptions

Updated 24.09.2019

Referencing instructions:

Official Statistics of Finland (OSF): Labour force survey [e-publication].
ISSN=1798-7857. August 2019. Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 22.11.2024].
Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/tyti/2019/08/tyti_2019_08_2019-09-24_tie_001_en.html