The number of unemployed people in December was 27,000 higher than a year earlier, Statistics Finland said on Friday.
The trend of the unemployment rate for those aged 15-74 was 8.9 percent, compared to nine percent in November. However, the employment rate also edged down, from 76.3 to 76.2 percent.
There were just under 2.6 million employed people in December, which was 56,000 fewer than a year earlier, the central number-crunching agency said.
Meanwhile, there were glimmers of improvement in the Uusimaa region, which includes Helsinki and environs. The number of furloughed workers decreased in December, while the growth of unemployment slowed compared to the previous month, the Uusimaa ELY Centre reported on Friday, citing data from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment.
According to the ministry – which calculates its labour-market figures using slightly different methods from Statistics Finland – there were nearly 322,000 unemployed jobseekers at the end of December. This was 24,000 more than a year earlier and 29,000 more than the previous month, it said.
According to Roope Ohlsbom, economist at Suomen Yrittäjät (the Federation of Finnish Enterprises), Finland's weak economic development over the longer term is reflected in the labour market.
"The ongoing difficulties in construction in particular and the significantly slower-than-expected recovery in private consumption can clearly be seen in the increase in the number of unemployed people over the past year," Ohlsbom told Yle on Friday.