HELSINKI, June 24 (Xinhua) -- Finland's unemployment rate rose to its highest level this century in May, while the number of unemployed people reached its highest level since 1998, Statistics Finland said on Wednesday.
According to Statistics Finland's Labour Force Survey, there were 376,000 unemployed persons aged 15 to 74 in May 2026, up from 308,000 in May 2025.
The unadjusted unemployment rate for the 15-74 age group stood at 12.7 percent in May, compared with 10.5 percent a year earlier, the agency said.
Unemployment figures typically reach their annual peak in May, as students and recent graduates enter the labour market, said Joanna Viinikka, senior statistician at Statistics Finland. Many young people are looking either for summer jobs or for their first job after graduation in an already highly competitive labour market, she said.
Youth unemployment accounted for a large part of the increase. The number of unemployed people aged 15 to 24 was about 44,000 higher than a year earlier, representing roughly two thirds of the annual increase in the total number of unemployed persons.
The employment situation also weakened. The trend of the employment rate among people aged 20 to 64 fell by one percentage point from April to 75.2 percent in May. Viinikka noted that the employment-rate trend was last at this level in early 2021, when Finland was still recovering from the downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The number of employed persons aged 15 to 74 stood at 2.594 million in May, down by 32,000 from a year earlier. The decline was more pronounced among women, with the number of employed women falling by 26,000 year on year, compared with a decrease of 6,000 among men.
"The size of the labour force has remained high for a long time, so there is potential for employment growth once the labour market starts to pick up again," Viinikka said.
In a separate labour market forecast published earlier, Finland's Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment said the country's annual unemployment rate is expected to remain high at around 10.2 percent in 2026 before falling to 9.8 percent in 2027 and 9.3 percent in 2028.
The ministry said the high unemployment rate has been driven by growth in the labour force, while demand for labour has remained subdued. It said the labour force has grown particularly because of increased labour-market participation among older people.
