Finland Times

 

Employment rates by sex in 1990-2014, persons aged 15 to 64, %. Source: Labour Force Survey 2014. Statistics Finland.

The employment rate decreased a little in 2014 and unemployment increased, according to Statistics Finland.

 

The weakening in employment affected in particular men so that there was no longer much difference between the employment rate of men and women.

 

The number of employees decreased but the number of self-employed persons increased. The number of new employment contracts of under one year's duration went down and part-time work became more common, as per the data derived from the annual review “Employment and Unemployment in 2014” of Statistics Finland’s Labour Force Survey.

 

The number of employed persons aged 15 to 74 decreased to 2,447,000 persons, which was 9,000 fewer than in 2013. The weakening of employment particularly applied to men.

 

The employment rate of the population aged 15 to 64 was 68.3 per cent, which was 0.2 percentage points lower than in 2013. Men's employment rate decreased by 0.5 percentage points from the previous year while women's employment rate remained almost unchanged.

 

The employment rate of men was 68.7 per cent and that of women 67.9 per cent in 2014.

 

The gender employment gap has never been this low on the annual level before. The employment rate decreased in all other age groups except those aged over 55, whose employment improved.

 

New employment contracts of under one year's duration numbered 406,000, which was 11,000 fewer than in 2013.

 

The number of temporary employment relationships remained almost unchanged at 329,000 in 2014 but part-time work increased somewhat.

 

There were 377,000 part-time employed aged 15 to 74. The lack of full-time work became as common a reason for working part-time as studying for those aged 15 to 64.

 

The weakening of employment from 2013 to 2014 applied to employees aged between 15 and 74.

 

In 2014, there were 2,105,000 employees, or 22,000 fewer than in 2013. By contrast, the number of self-employed persons and unpaid family workers increased by 12,000 persons and amounted to 343,000. 

 

There were 232,000 unemployed in 2014, which was 13,000 more than in the previous year. The unemployment rate rose to 8.7 per cent, and was 0.5 percentage points higher than in 2013.

 

The unemployment rate of  men was 9.3 per cent and that of women 8.0 per cent.

 

The youth unemployment rate also grew.

 

The share of the unemployed of the entire 15 to 24 age group was 10.4 per cent in 2014. In other words, around one in ten young persons was unemployed in 2014.

 

The number of persons in disguised unemployment grew by 14,000 from 2013, i.e. by roughly the same as the number of unemployed persons.

 

Disguised unemployment refers to persons, who would and could have accepted work, but had not looked for it. There were 138,000 persons in disguised unemployment, the data show