The unemployment rate is rising in Finland’s female-dominated fields, especially in public-sector social and healthcare. On the other hand, employment has increased in male-dominated fields such as transport and storage, according to Statistics Finland.
In the first quarter of this year, just over 2.54 million people were employed. The total was down by 28,000 compared to the corresponding period of 2024.
Meanwhile the number of jobseekers rose by a bigger margin, with 38,000 more people registered as unemployed.
The number of women with jobs dropped by 21,000, three times as many as the decline of 7,000 among working men, the national statistics bureau said.
The rise in redundancies in the health and social services sectors since last autumn is linked to the budget shortfalls of Finland’s wellbeing services counties. As of the end of last year, more than half of them were in the red.
More long-term unemployed than during pandemic
"Employment in the private sector is no longer declining, but the decline in the public sector continues," Henna Busk, senior economist at Pellervo Economic Research (PTT), said in a statement on Thursday.
By industry, the largest decline in employment in the first quarter of the year was in the health and social services sector, she said, adding that employment in the education and public administration sectors also fell.
The number of long-term unemployed people is also still growing. There are now more than 115,000 of them – more than during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic.
PTT pointed out that reducing unemployment becomes more difficult as the number of long-term jobless people increases. And even after the economy starts to recover, there is typically a delay before that number begins to decrease.
