October was not a positive month for employment and ended with fewer people employed and more unemployed compared to a year ago. In the background of this development is the serious economic crisis derived from the coronavirus pandemic.
According to Statistics Finland's Labour Force Survey, in October there were 203,000 unemployed people, 34,000 more than one year earlier.
With these figures, the unemployment rate was 7.4% in October, having been 6.2% in the year before.
In this context, male unemployment slightly exceeded female unemployment. The number of unemployed men was 108,000 and that of women 95,000.
However, data show that in the last twelve months, unemployment among women increased at a rate more than double that of men.
The unemployment rate for men went up by 0.7 percentage points from the previous year’s October to 7.5%, while the unemployment rate for women rose by 1.8 percentage points to 7.3%.
Young people
The unemployment figures also reflect the damage this crisis is doing to young people.
The unemployment rate for young people aged 15 to 24, that is, the proportion of the unemployed among the labour force, stood at 18.6%, which was 3.7 percentage points higher than one year previously. The share of unemployed young people among the population in the same age group was 7.8%.
There were 1,398,000 persons in the inactive population in October, which was 7,000 fewer than one year earlier. Of the inactive population, 128,000 persons were in disguised unemployment , which was 7,000 more than in October 2019.
Source: Statistics Finland.
26,000 fewer employees
In October, the number of employed persons was 2,530,000, which was 26,000 fewer than a year earlier. There were 9,000 more employed men and 35,000 fewer employed women than in October 2019.
The employment rate , that is, the proportion of the employed among persons aged 15 to 64, stood at 71.5%, having been 72% cent one year earlier.
Thus, during the last twelve months this percentage has deviated another half a percentage point from the objective of 75% established by the government of Sanna Marin in its government programme.
From the previous year’s October, the employment rate of men aged 15 to 64 rose by 0.3 percentage points to 72.7% and that of women fell by 1.2 percentage points to 70.4%.
