Number of unemployed jobseekers’ slides in Dec

The number of unemployed jobseekers decreased by 82,000 in December 2021 from one year before, said the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment in a press release on Tuesday.

At the end of December, a total of 275,300 unemployed jobseekers were registered at the Employment and Economic Development Offices and municipalities participating in the local government pilots on employment.

The number is 82,000 less than a year earlier, but 17,600 more than in December two years ago. The number of unemployed jobseekers increased by 22,600 from the previous month.

Of the unemployed jobseekers, 144,700 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 December, the number of people laid off was 34,000 in the whole country, which was 62,500 fewer than at the same time the year before. The number of people fully laid off totalled 25,400, representing a decrease of 52,400 from December the year before. The number of people fully laid off increased by 6,700 from November.

The number of long-term unemployed — that is those who had been unemployed without interruption for at least a year — amounted to 107,300, up 15,400 on the previous year.

The number of new vacancies reported during December totalled 90,600, or 40,200 more than in December the previous year. In all, the number of unfilled vacancies in December amounted to 164,500, which is 71,600 more than a year ago.

At the end of December, the number of persons covered by services included in the activation rate amounted to 104,200, down 3,500 on the previous year. These services include pay subsidies, labour market training, work trials and self-motivated studies.

According to the Labour Force Survey issued by Statistics Finland, in December the number of people in employment was 128,000 more than on the previous year. The trend of the employment rate was 73.5%, which was 2.5 percentage points higher than in December the year before.

According to the Survey, the unemployment total was 187,000, which is 16,000 less than a year ago. The trend of the unemployment rate was 7.0%, or 1.1 percentage points lower than the previous year.