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Published: 24 March 2020

Employment strengthened in February compared to one year ago

According to Statistics Finland’s Labour Force Survey, the number of employed people was 20,000 higher in February 2020 than one year ago. There were 13,000 fewer unemployed than in February 2019. The trend of the employment rate was 73.4 per cent and the trend of the unemployment rate was 6.6 per cent.

Employment rate and trend of employment rate 2010/02–2020/02, persons aged 15–64

Employment rate and trend of employment rate 2010/02–2020/02, persons aged 15–64

Employment and unemployment 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 rate was 73.4 per cent in February and the trend of the unemployment rate was 6.6 per cent. Based on seasonally adjusted data for February, the trend of the employment rate has risen continuously since July 2019.

In February 2020, the number of employed persons was 2,524,000 (margin of error ±36,000), which was 20,000 more than a year earlier. There were 12,000 more employed men and 8,000 more employed women than in February 2019.

In February, the employment rate , that is, the proportion of the employed among persons aged 15 to 64, stood at 71.3 per cent, having been 70.7 per cent one year earlier. From the previous year’s February, the employment rate of men aged 15 to 64 rose by 0.4 percentage points to 71.7 per cent and that of women rose by 0.7 percentage points to 70.8 per cent.

According to Statistics Finland's Labour Force Survey, there were 187,000 unemployed in February 2020 (margin of error ±19,000), which was 13,000 fewer than one year earlier. The number of unemployed men was 106,000 and that of women 81,000.

The unemployment rate was 6.9 per cent in February, having been 7.4 per cent in the year before. The unemployment rate for men fell by 0.6 percentage points from last year’s February to 7,5 per cent. The unemployment rate for women fell by 0.4 percentage points to 6.2 per cent.

In February, there were a total of 610,000 young people aged 15 to 24 . Of them, 224,000 were employed and 51,000 unemployed. Thus, the number of young people in the active population, i.e. the employed and unemployed in total, was 275,000. In February, the unemployment rate for young people aged 15 to 24, that is, the proportion of the unemployed among the labour force, stood at 18.4 per cent, which was 1.2 percentage points lower than one year previously. The trend of the unemployment rate among young people was 17.3 per cent. The share of unemployed young people aged 15 to 24 among the population in the same age group was 8.3 per cent.

There were 1,421,000 in the inactive population in February 2020, which was almost the same as one year earlier. Of the inactive population, 109,000 persons were in disguised unemployment , which was 5,000 fewer than in February 2019.

Changes in employment 2019/02 – 2020/02 according to Statistics Finland’s Labour Force Survey, population aged 15 to 74

  Year/Month Change
2019/02 2020/02 2019/02 - 2020/02
1000 persons Per cent, %
Population total 4 127 4 132 0,1
Active population total 2 704 2 711 0,3
Employed 2 504 2 524 0,8
– employees 2 154 2 180 1,2
– self-employed persons and unpaid family workers 349 344 –1,5
Unemployed 200 187 –6,5
Inactive population 1 423 1 421 –0,1
– persons in disguised unemployment 114 109 –4,3
  Per cent, % Percentage points
Employment rate, persons aged 15–64 70,7 71,3 0,5
Unemployment rate 7,4 6,9 –0,5
Activity rate 65,5 65,6 0,1
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 February 2020, there were altogether 248,000 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 2,000 higher than in February last year.

Unemployment fell in February from the corresponding period in 2019 in the areas of six Employment and Economic Development Centres: most in Kainuu (-8%), Lapland (-4%), and Southwest Finland (-2%). The number of unemployed job seekers grew most in North Karelia (6%), South Ostrobothnia (3%), Pirkanmaa (3%) and North Savo (3%). At the end of February, the number of fully laid off persons registered at the employment and economic development offices was 19,000, which was 3,000 more than twelve months earlier.

The number of persons engaged in services included in the activation rate totalled 119,000 at the end of February, which was 7,000 fewer than in February of the year before. Altogether, 4.4 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 1,000 lower than in the previous year's February. During this February, 74,000 new vacancies were reported to the employment and economic development offices, which was 4,000 fewer than in February last year.

Changes 2019/02–2020/02 according to the Employment Service Statistics of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment

  Year/Month Change
2019/02 2020/02 2019/02 - 2020/02
1000 persons Per cent, %
Unemployed job seekers 246 248 0,9
– unemployed over a year 65 63 –2,2
Services, total 126 119 –5,4
– employed 24 23 –4,5
– in labour market training, in training 23 24 5,3
– engaged in work/training trials 10 8 –16,6
– as a job alternation substitute, in rehabilitative work, self-motivated studies supported by unemployment benefit 69 64 –7,5
New vacancies at employment and economic development offices 78 74 –5,4
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

The new classification of the employer sector was adopted in the Labour Force Survey starting from 1 January 2020. Because of the change, Appendix table 9 is not published at the moment. The first employer sector data for 2020 will appear in the release of the quarterly data on 23 April 2020.

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 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 2020, February. Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Pertti Taskinen 029 551 2690, Kirsi Toivonen 029 551 3535, tyovoimatutkimus@stat.fi

Director in charge: Jari Tarkoma

Publication in pdf-format (447.4 kB)

Tables

Tables in databases

Pick the data you need into tables, view the data as graphs, or download the data for your use.

Appendix tables

Figures
Quality descriptions

Updated 24.03.2020

Referencing instructions:

Official Statistics of Finland (OSF): Labour force survey [e-publication].
ISSN=1798-7857. February 2020. Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 28.12.2024].
Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/tyti/2020/02/tyti_2020_02_2020-03-24_tie_001_en.html