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Published: 23 July 2019

Employment unchanged, unemployment decreased from one year ago

According to Staistic Finland’s Labour Force Survey, there was nearly the same amount of employed people in June as one year earlier. There were 16,000 fewer unemployed than in June 2018. The trend of the employment rate was 72.5 per cent and the trend of the unemployment rate was 6.5 per cent.

Employment rate and trend of employment rate 2009/06–2019/06, persons aged 15–64

Employment rate and trend of employment rate 2009/06–2019/06, 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 .

In June 2019, the number of employed persons was 2,673,000 (margin of error ±34,000), which was one thousand more than a year earlier. There were 6,000 fewer employed men and 7,000 more employed women than in June 2018.

In June 2019, the employment rate , that is, the proportion of the employed among persons aged 15 to 64, stood at 75.7 per cent, having been 75.5 per cent one year earlier. From the previous year’s June, the employment rate of men aged 15 to 64 declined by 0.3 percentage points to 76.7 per cent and that of women rose by 0.7 percentage points to 74.8 per cent.

According to Statistics Finland's Labour Force Survey, there were 176,000 unemployed in June 2019 (margin of error ±18,000), i.e. 16,000 fewer than in June of the year before. The number of unemployed men was 102,000 and that of women 74,000.

At 6.2 per cent, the unemployment rate was 0.5 percentage points lower in June than one year earlier. The unemployment rate was 6.9 per cent, or the same as one twelve months earlier. The unemployment rate for women fell by 1.0 percentage points to 5.4 per cent.

In June, there were a total of 613,000 young people aged 15 to 24 . Of them, 352,000 were employed and 63,000 unemployed. The number of young people in the active population, i.e. the employed and unemployed, was 415,000. In June, the unemployment rate for young people aged 15 to 24, that is, the proportion of the unemployed among the labour force, stood at 15.2 per cent, which was 1.2 percentage points higher than one year previously. The trend of the unemployment rate among young people was 16.0 per cent. The share of unemployed young people aged 15 to 24 among the population in the same age group was 10.3 per cent.

There were 1,276,000 persons in the inactive population in June 2019, which was 19,000 more than one year earlier. Of the inactive population, 131,000 persons were in disguised unemployment , which was the same amount as in June 2018.

Changes in employment 2018/06 – 2019/06 according to Statistics Finland’s Labour Force Survey, population aged 15 to 74

  Year/Month Change
2018/06 2019/06 2018/06 - 2019/06
1000 persons Per cent, %
Population total 4 122 4 125 0,1
Active population total 2 865 2 849 –0,5
Employed 2 672 2 673 0,0
– employees 2 329 2 313 –0,7
– self-employed persons and unpaid family workers 344 360 4,8
Unemployed 192 176 –8,5
Inactive population 1 257 1 276 1,5
– persons in disguised unemployment 131 131 –0,1
  Per cent, % Percentage points
Employment rate, persons aged 15–64 75,5 75,7 0,2
Unemployment rate 6,7 6,2 –0,5
Activity rate 69,5 69,1 –0,4
Unrounded figures are used in the Change column.
The data comply with the ILO/EU definition.

Labour Force Survey data for the second quarter of 2019

In the second quarter (April to June) of 2019, the average number of employed persons was 2,593,000, which was 20,000 higher than in the corresponding quarter of 2018. The number of employed persons increased most in information and communication (J) and in food service activities (I).

The number of hours worked by employed persons was 1.0 per cent lower in the second quarter of 2019 than twelve months previously.

The average number of unemployed persons in the second quarter of 2019 was 215,000, which was 14,000 fewer than in the April to June period of 2018. The unemployment rate in the second quarter of 2019 was 7.7 per cent, which was 0.5 percentage points lower than in the respective period of 2018.

In the second quarter of 2019, the number of persons in the inactive population was 1,317,000, which was 3,000 fewer than a year earlier. Of the inactive population, 111,000 persons were in disguised unemployment , which was 11,000 fewer than in the corresponding period of 2018.

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

  Year/Quarter Change
2018/II 2019/II 2018/II - 2019/II
1000 persons Per cent (%)
Active population total 2 802 2 808 0,2
Employed persons total 2 573 2 593 0,8
Unemployed total 229 215 –6,2
– men 122 120 –2,1
– women 107 95 –10,9
Inactive population 1 320 1 317 –0,2
– persons in disguised unemployment 122 111 –9,0
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 June 2019, there were altogether 254,000 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 19,000 lower than in June 2018.

Unemployment fell in June from the corresponding period in 2018 in the areas of all Employment and Economic Development Centres: most in Häme (–11%), North Karelia (–11%), South Savo (–10%), Southeast Finland (–10%), Lapland (–9%), Kainuu (–9%) and Southwest Finland (–9%). At the end of June, the number of persons fully laid off registered at the employment and economic development offices was 10,000, which was the same number as twelve months earlier.

The number of persons engaged in services included in the activation rate totalled 110,000 at the end of June, which was 4,000 fewer than in June of the year before. Altogether, 3.9 per cent of the labour force was covered by labour market policy services.

There were 35,000 unemployed job seekers aged under 25 registered at the employment and economic development offices. Their number was 3,000 lower than in last year's June. During this June, 53,000 new vacancies were reported to the employment and economic development offices, which was 3,000 more than in June 2018.

Changes 2018/06–2019/06 according to the Employment Service Statistics of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment

  Year/Month Change
2018/06 2019/06 2018/06 - 2019/06
1000 persons Per cent, %
Unemployed job seekers 273 254 –6,8
– unemployed over a year 77 64 –17,2
Services, total 114 110 –3,4
– employed 27 25 –6,3
– in labour market training, in training 18 19 5,6
– engaged in work/training trials 11 9 –19,0
– as a job alternation substitute, in rehabilitative work, self-motivated studies supported by unemployment benefit 59 57 –2,1
New vacancies at employment and economic development offices 50 53 5,0
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 . See the Revisions in database page.

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, June. Statistics Finland

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

Director in charge: Jari Tarkoma

Publication in pdf-format (631.3 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 23.07.2019

Referencing instructions:

Official Statistics of Finland (OSF): Labour force survey [e-publication].
ISSN=1798-7857. June 2019. Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 28.3.2024].
Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/tyti/2019/06/tyti_2019_06_2019-07-23_tie_001_en.html