Number of unemployed jobseekers rises in April Y-o-Y

A total of 246,100 unemployed jobseekers were registered at the Employment and Economic Development Offices and municipalities participating in the local government pilots on employment.

The number of unemployed jobseekers is 7,400 higher than a year earlier and 7,700 fewer than in the previous month, said the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment in a press release on Wednesday.

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

At the end of April, the number of people laid off was 24,600 in the whole country; a year-on-year increase of 1,200. The number of people fully laid off totalled 19,000, representing an increase of 2,400 from April the year before. The number of people fully laid off decreased by 3,900 from March.

The number of long-term unemployed, those who had been unemployed without interruption for at least a year — totalled 84,700, which was 12,300 lower than the previous year.

The number of unemployed jobseekers aged over 50 was 92,500, or 2,300 fewer than at the same time a year earlier.

The number of unemployed jobseekers aged under 25 was 25,100, representing an increase of 400 from April last year. Of the unemployment periods of youths, 57.6 per cent ended before reaching three months between January and April. This is 4.0 percentage points fewer than the year before.

Meanwhile, the number of new vacancies reported during April totalled 74,400, or 36,800 fewer than in April the previous year. In all, the number of unfilled vacancies in April was 170,300, which is 70,400 fewer than a year ago.

At the end of April, the number of persons covered by services included in the activation rate amounted to 117,800, up 2,300 on the previous year. These services include pay subsidies, labour market training, rehabilitative work and self-motivated studies.

According to the Labour Force Survey issued by Statistics Finland, in April the number of people in employment was 17,000 more than on the previous year.

The trend of the employment rate was 74.2%, which was 0.5 percentage points higher than in April the year before.

According to the Survey, the unemployment total was 222,000, which is 29,000 more than a year ago. The trend of the unemployment rate was 6.7%, or 0.3 percentage points higher than the previous year.