HELSINKI: The unemployment rate was 7.8 per cent in July 2016, having been 8.4 per cent in the year before, according to Statistics Finland’s Labour Force Survey. The number of unemployed persons in July was 214,000, which was 18,000 lower than one year ago.
The number of employed persons was nearly the same as in July of the previous year. The number of persons in the inactive population was 25,000 higher than one year earlier the data show. In July 2016, the number of employed persons was 2,525,000, which was almost the same as one year earlier.
There were 14,000 more employed men and 12,000 fewer employed women than in July 2015. The employment rate, that is, the proportion of the employed among persons aged 15 to 64, stood at 71.1 per cent in July, having been 70.7 per cent one year earlier. The employment rate for men grew by 1.1 percentage points from last year to 72.4 per cent. The employment rate for women fell by 0.3 percentage points to 69.9 per cent. Adjusted for seasonal and random variation, the trend of the employment rate was 68.4 per cent.
There were 214,000 unemployed in July 2016, i.e. 18,000 fewer than in July of the year before, according to Labour Force Survey. The number of unemployed was 107,000 for both men and women. At 7.8 per cent, the unemployment rate was 0.6 percentage points lower in July than one year earlier. Men’s unemployment rate was 7.6 per cent and women’s 8.1 per cent.
The trend of the unemployment rate was 8.9 per cent. In July, there were a total of 636,000 young people aged 15 to 24. Of them, 325,000 were employed and 54,000 unemployed. The number of young people in the active population was 380,000. In July, the unemployment rate for young people aged 15 to 24, that is, the proportion of the unemployed among the labour force, stood at 14.3 per cent, which was 3.1 percentage points lower than one year previously.
The trend of the unemployment rate among young people was 20.6 per cent. The share of unemployed young people aged 15 to 24 among the population in the same age group was 8.5 per cent. At the end of July 2016, there were altogether 378,000 persons registered in accordance with the Employment Office Regulations as job seekers at the employment and economic development offices. The number of unemployed job seekers was 3,000 lower than in July last year.
Unemployment fell in July from the corresponding period in 2015 in the areas of eleven Employment and Economic Development Centres most in Kainuu (–11%), Häme (–5%), North Ostrobothnia (–5%), and Central Finland (–4%). In the areas of all other Employment and Economic Development Centres, unemployment increased most in Ostrobothnia (7%), Pirkanmaa (4%) and Uusimaa (2%).
The number of temporarily laid off persons registered at the employment and economic development offices was 22,000, which was 2,000 fewer than twelve months earlier. The number of persons engaged in services included in the activation rate totalled 99,000 at the end of July, which was 2,000 more than in last year’s July. Altogether, 3.6 per cent of the labour force was covered by labour market policy services as per the statistics. There were 55,000 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 July. During this July, 36,000 new vacancies were reported to the employment and economic development offices, which is 3,000 more than in July last year.
