Number of unemployed persons goes down in January

A total of 258,000 unemployed jobseekers were registered at the Employment and Economic Development Offices and municipalities at the end of January, said the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment in a press release on Tuesday.

The number is 15,700 fewer than a year earlier and 2,400 fewer than in the previous month.

Of the unemployed jobseekers, 140,400, or 4,300 fewer than in January a year ago, were customers of municipalities participating in the local government pilots on employment.

The number of unemployed jobseekers also includes those fully laid off.

At the end of January, the number of people laid off was 28,700 in the whole country, which was 9,200 fewer than at the same time the year before.

The number of people fully laid off totalled 22,400, representing a decrease of 6,800 from January the year before. The number of people fully laid off decreased by 1,200 from December.

The number of long-term unemployed — i.e. those who had been unemployed without interruption for at least a year — totalled 85,900, which is 20,100 fewer than the previous year.

The number of unemployed jobseekers aged over 50 was 95,500, or 9,600 fewer than at the same time a year earlier.

Unemployed jobseekers aged under 25 numbered 27,400, representing a decrease of 2,600 from January last year.

Of the unemployment periods of youths, 57.1 per cent ended before reaching three months in January. This is 2.1 percentage points fewer than the year before.

The number of new vacancies reported during January totalled 114,700, or 10,400 fewer than in January the previous year. In all, the number of unfilled vacancies in January was 176,500, which is 31,600 fewer than a year ago.

At the end of January, the number of persons covered by services included in the activation rate amounted to 111,500, up 2,600 on the previous year.

These services include pay subsidies, labour market training, rehabilitative work and self-motivated studies.

Meanwhile, according to the Labour Force Survey issued by Statistics Finland, in January the number of people in employment was 25,000 more than on the previous year.

The trend of the employment rate was 74.2%, which was 0.6 percentage points higher than in January the year before.

According to the Survey, the unemployment total was 211,000, which is 6,000 more than a year ago.

The trend of the unemployment rate was 7.0%, or 0.2 percentage points higher than the previous year.

are internationally comparable and thus they are the official Finnish unemployment statistics.