Number of employed people increases in January

The number of employed people was 35,000 higher in January 2019 than the number of employed people one year ago, according to Statistics Finland.

The number of unemployed persons in January was 181,000, which was 57,000 lower than one year ago. The trend of the unemployment rate was 6.4 per cent and the trend of the employment rate 72.6 per cent.

In January 2019, the number of employed persons was 2,498,000 (margin of error ±34,000).

In January, the employment rate , that is, the proportion of the employed among persons aged 15 to 64, stood at 70.6 per cent, having been 69.3 per cent one year earlier.

From January last year, the employment rate for men aged 15 to 64 increased by 1.0 percentage points to 71.0 per cent and women’s employment rate by 1.8 percentage points to 70.2 per cent. Adjusted for seasonal and random variation, the trend of the employment rate was 72.6 per cent.

According to Statistics Finland's Labour Force Survey, there were 181,000 unemployed in January 2019 (margin of error ±18,000), i.e. 57,000 fewer than in January of the year before. The number of unemployed men was 98,000 and that of women 83,000.

At 6.8 per cent, the unemployment rate in January was 2.1 percentage points lower than one year earlier. The unemployment rate of men decreased by 1.3 percentage points to 7.1 per cent, and that of women by 2.9 percentage points to 6.4 per cent from the year before. The trend of the unemployment rate was 6.4 per cent.