The number of unemployment people in Finland has increased to, 220,000, or by 8.3 per cent, over the past year, according to Statistics Finland.
The statistics agency said the rate of unemployment stood at 7.4 per cent at the same time last year, while at the end of September it was at 8.2 per cent.
Many of the people out of work fell in the 18-24 age bracket, with 153,000, or 18.8 per cent, of people within the age range classed as unemployed. When comparing males and females, 9.7 per cent of men were looking for employment compared to 6.9 per cent of women.
Some 7,000 fewer people were employed across the country compared to the same time last year. Meanwhile, the number of employed people was around 2.4 million people, which represented 67.6 per cent of the country’s workforce. At the same time last year, the employment rate stood at 68.1 per cent.
The agency revealed that job losses since October 2013 were at their highest within the private sector, while the public sector recorded a rise in jobs over the period.
The figures published represents the people who are actively seeking employment. The agency said that there were almost 1.5 million working-aged people who were unemployed but not looking for work as of the end of October – a fall of 10,000 people from October last year.
However, there was a large rise in the number of people who were in the unemployment category but hadn’t been seeking work for four weeks or more because of factors such as pursuing education, looking after children or simply giving up the hunt. Over the past 12 months, the figure shot up from 33,000 to 150,000.
The Ministry of Employment and the Economy’s figures differ from Statistics Finland, stating that the number of jobseekers is actually 320,000 – 30,000 higher than at the same point last year. It says that in all areas of Finland, except Uusimaa in the south and Ostrobothnia and southern Ostrobothnia in the west, are suffering from greater unemployment than at the same time last year.