Rate of unemployment rises to 8.1% in Feb

The number of employed people was 6,000 lower in February 2021 than that of one year ago, according to Statistics Finland.

In February 2021, the number of employed persons was 2,481,000 (margin of error ±31,000).

In February, the employment rate, that is, the proportion of the employed among persons aged 15 to 64, stood at 70 per cent, having been 70.3 per cent one year earlier.

From the previous year’s February, the employment rate of men aged 15 to 64 fell by 0.6 percentage points to 69.8 per cent and that of women rose by 0.2 percentage points to 70.3 per cent.

According to Statistics Finland's Labour Force Survey, there were 220,000 unemployed people in February 2021 (margin of error ±22,000), i.e., 35,000 more than that of one year earlier.

The unemployment rate was 8.1 per cent in February, having been 6.9 per cent `12 months ago.

There were 1,426,000 persons in the inactive population in February 2021, which was 35,000 less than that of one year earlier.

At the end of February 2021, there were altogether 327,000 persons registered in accordance with the Employment Office Regulations as unemployed job-seekers at the employment and economic development offices. The number of unemployed job-seekers was 79,000 more than that in February 2020.

Unemployment rose in February from that in the corresponding month of the previous year in the areas of all Centres for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment: most in Uusimaa (58%), Southwest Finland (33%), Lapland (30%), and Ostrobothnia (28%).

The number of unemployed job-seekers grew least in Kainuu (8%), South Savo (9%), North Karelia (11%) and Southeast Finland (13%). At the end of February, the number of fully laid-off persons registered at the employment and economic development offices was 56,000, rising by 37,000 than the figure registered 12 months earlier.

The number of persons engaged in services included in the activation rate totalled 115,000 at the end of February, posting a slide of 4,000 from that in February 2020. Altogether, 4.3 per cent of the labour force was covered by labour market policy services.