Unemployment rate reduces to 8.6% in April

The number of employed people was 48,000 higher in April than one year ago, according to Statistics Finland’s Labour Force Survey.

The number of unemployed persons in April 2018 was 233,000, which was 45,000 lower than one year ago.

The unemployment rate declined by 1.7 percentage points to 8.6 per cent. The trend of the unemployment rate was 8.0 per cent in April.

In April 2018, the number of employed persons was 2,491,000 (margin of error ±34,000), which was 48,000 more than a year earlier. There were 15,000 more employed men and 33,000 more employed women than in April 2017.

In April 2017, the employment rate, that is, the proportion of the employed among persons aged 15 to 64, stood at 70.1 per cent, having been 68.6 per cent one year earlier. From last year’s April, men’s employment rate rose by 0.8 percentage points to 70.1 per cent and women’s by 2.2 percentage points to 70.0 per cent. Adjusted for seasonal and random variation, the trend of the employment rate was 71.0 per cent.

According to Statistics Finland's Labour Force Survey, there were 233,000 unemployed (margin of error ±19,000) in April 2018, i.e. 45,000 fewer than one year earlier. The number of unemployed men was 131,000 and that of women 102,000.

At 8.6 per cent, the unemployment rate in April was 1.7 percentage points lower than one year earlier. The unemployment rate for men decreased by 1.3 percentage points to 9.3 per cent, and that of women by 2.0 percentage points to 7.7 per cent year-on-year. The trend of the unemployment rate was 8.0 per cent.