Number of unemployed jobseekers spikes in June

A total of 416,900 unemployed jobseekers were registered with the employment and economic development offices at the end of June, showing a year-on-year increase of 162,700, said the economic affairs and employment ministry in a press release on Tuesday.

The number of unemployed jobseekers was down by 15,800 from that in the previous month. The number of unemployed jobseekers also includes those fully laid off. These figures are taken from the Employment Bulletin published by the economic affairs and employment ministry.

At the end of June, the number of people laid-off was 137,600 in the whole country, posting a year-on-year increase of 122,800. The number of people fully laid-off totalled 117,000, representing an increase of 107,400 from that in June 2019. The number of people fully laid-off decreased by 41,200 from that in May.

The number of long-term unemployed — that is those who had been unemployed without interruption for more than a year — amounted to 75,200, up by 11,400 on the previous year. The number of unemployed jobseekers aged over 50 was 134,600, representing an increase of 45,100 on the year before.

The number of unemployed jobseekers aged less than 25 was 58,900, representing an increase of 23,600 from that in June last year. Among the unemployed young people, the period of unemployment ended within three months on average in 60.7% of the cases between January and June, which is 5.3 percentage points less than that in the year before.

The number of new vacancies reported to employment and economic development offices in June totalled 47,700, down by 4,800 from that in June 2019. In all, the number of unfilled vacancies at employment and economic development offices amounted to 93,000 in June, showing a decrease of 17,000 year on year.

At the end of June, the number of persons covered by services included in the activation rate amounted to 98,300, down by 11,700 on the previous year. These services include pay subsidies, labour market training, work trials, and self-motivated studies.

According to the Labour Force Survey issued by the Statistics Finland, in June, the number of people in employment was 87,000 less than on the previous year.

The employment rate was 73.7%, which was 2.1 percentage points lower than in June 2019. According to the survey findings, the total number of the unemployed was 223,000, which is 47,000 more year on year. The unemployment rate was 7.9%, or 1.8 percentage points higher than that in the previous year.