Unemployment rate decreases in October

The number of employed people was 43,000 higher in October 2018 than one year ago, according to Statistics Finland.

The number of unemployed persons was 171,000, which was 26,000 lower than one year ago.

The trend of the unemployment rate was 7.2 per cent and the trend of the employment rate 71.8 per cent.

In October 2018, the number of employed persons was 2,535,000 (margin of error ±33,000), which was 43,000 higher than a year earlier. There were 14,000 more employed men and 29,000 more employed women than in October 2017.

In October, the employment rate , that is, the proportion of the employed among persons aged 15 to 64, stood at 71.5 per cent, having been 70.0 per cent one year earlier.

From last year’s October, men’s employment rate rose by 0.9 percentage points to 72.0 per cent and women’s by 2.1 percentage points to 71.0 per cent. Adjusted for seasonal and random variation, the trend of the employment rate was 71.8 per cent.

According to Statistics Finland's Labour Force Survey, there were 171,000 unemployed (margin of error ±18,000) in October 2018, i.e. 26,000 fewer than one year earlier. The number of unemployed men was 95,000 and that of women 76,000.

At 6.3 per cent, the unemployment rate was 1.0 percentage points lower in October than one year earlier. The unemployment rate of men decreased by 0.6 percentage points to 6.8 per cent, and that of women by 1.4 percentage points to 5.8 per cent. The trend of the unemployment rate was 7.2 per cent.

In October, there were a total of 617,000 young people aged 15 to 24 . Of them, 232,000 were employed and 40,000 unemployed. The number of young people in the active population, i.e. the employed and unemployed in total, was 273,000. In October, the unemployment rate for young people aged 15 to 24, that is, the proportion of the unemployed among the labour force, stood at 14.7 per cent, which was 2.4 percentage points higher than one year previously. The trend of the unemployment rate among young people was 17.5 per cent. The share of unemployed young people aged 15 to 24 among the population in the same age group was 6.5 per cent.

There were 1,419,000 persons in the inactive population in October 2018, which was 10,000 fewer than one year earlier. Of the inactive population, 130,000 persons were in disguised unemployment , which was 7,000 fewer than in October 2017.