Finland's unemployment rate among people aged 15 to 74 climbed to 9 percent last month, according to figures published on Wednesday by Statistics Finland.
"In March, the unemployment rate of persons aged 15 to 74, or the proportion of the unemployed among the labour force stood at 9.0 percent, having been 6.9 per cent one year earlier," the report said.
The data-crunching agency's latest Labour Force Survey further noted that this amounted to just over a quarter of a million people, or an increase of some 60,000 on March 2023.
Youth unemployment, among the 15-24 year old demographic, now stands at 26 percent — a 7.9 percentage point increase on last year.
In total, there were 2.558 million people employed in Finland last month, a drop of about 52,000 compared to March 2023.
"The employment rate of men aged 20 to 64 fell by 1.2 percentage points to 76.1 percent and that of women went down by 2.1 percentage points to 76.0 percent from one year ago," Statistics Finland's report noted.
In a separate report published on Wednesday, covering the first quarter of this year, Statistics Finland found that the average unemployment rate for the period was 8.3 percent, having been 7.1 percent in Q1 of 2023.
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