Unemployment rate increases to 9% in April

The unemployment rate increased to 9.0 per cent in April having been 8.0 per cent one year earlier, according to Statistics Finland.

Men’s unemployment rate rose by 1.0 percentage points to 9.7 per cent and women’s by 0.8 percentage points to 8.2 per cent.

According to Statistics Finland’s Labour Force Survey, there were 244,000 unemployed in April 2021, which was 30,000 more than one year earlier (margin of error ±24,000).

The number of unemployed men was 138,000 and that of women 106,000.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment in a press release on Tuesday said that at the end of April, a total of 318,400 unemployed jobseekers were registered at the Employment and Economic Development Offices and municipalities participating in the local government pilots on employment.

This is 114,600 less than a year earlier, but 88,800 more than in April two years ago.

The number of unemployed jobseekers decreased by 13,100 from the previous month. Of the unemployed jobseekers, 158,600 were customers of municipalities participating in the local government pilots on employment. The number of unemployed jobseekers also includes those fully laid off. These figures are from the Employment Bulletin of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment.

At the end of April, the number of people laid off was 70,200 in the whole country, which was 113,800 fewer than at the same time the year before. The number of people fully laid off totalled 53,900, representing a decrease of 109,800 from April the year before. The number of people fully laid off decreased by 8,800 from March.