March sees sharp spike in unemployed jobseekers

A total of 309,100 unemployed jobseekers had registered with the Employment and Economic Development Offices until the end of March, posting a rise of 70,700 year on year, said the economic affairs and employment ministry in a press release.

The number of unemployed jobseekers had increased by 60,900 from that in February.

The rapid increase in the number of unemployed jobseekers, and particularly in the number of full-time lay-offs, was due to restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

As of the end of March, the number of people laid off in the country was 74,000, marking a year-on-year increase of 53,200. The total number of people fully laid-off was 65,300, representing an increase of 50,400 from the corresponding number in March 2019.

The number of long-term unemployed, i.e., those who had been unemployed without interruption for more than a year, amounted to 64,900, up by 1,200 on the previous year. The number of unemployed jobseekers aged over 50 was 107,300, representing an increase of 16,700 on the year before.

According to the Labour Force Survey issued by Statistics Finland, in March, the number of people in employment was 21,000 less than that in the previous year. The employment rate was 71.3 per cent, which was 0.5 percentage points lower than that in March 2019.

According to the survey, in total, 197,000 people were unemployment in March, showing a year-on-year increase of 6,000 people. The unemployment rate was 7.3 per cent, or 0.3 percentage points higher than that of one year ago.