Number of long-term unemployed is in clear decline, but it has grown immensely from the pre-pandemic times
The analysis is based on the situation at the end of December, the chart is updated monthly
At the end of December, there were almost 30,800 long-term unemployed persons in the Helsinki region, which is 21 per cent less than in the previous year. The number of long-term unemployed started to decrease in March 2022 after two years of growth. Unemployed persons who have been unemployed for more than one year are classified as long-term unemployed. The number of people who have been unemployed for a very long time continues to increase. At the end of 2022, there were still nearly 11,000 more long-term unemployed persons than before the COVID-19 pandemic at the end of 2019.
At the end of December, there were 15,400 long-term unemployed people in Helsinki, which accounts for half of all the long-term unemployed in the region. In Espoo, the number of long-term unemployed persons was 5,050, in Vantaa 5,200 and in the KUUMA municipalities 5,000. The total number of long-term unemployed people in the entire country was nearly 86,200.
According to the client register of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, the number of persons who had been unemployed for more than a year grew sharply in all the cities in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, KUUMA municipalities and the entire country during the COVID-19 pandemic. The growth slowed down towards the end of 2021.