The latest data related to labour market status show that between April and September 2020, the number of people who moved outside the labour force compared with the previous quarter was twice as high as in the corresponding period last year. The rate at which jobs are changed has slowed down. The NAOF has produced a visualization of the labour market shifts.
In September, the NAOF published a visualization illustrating the shifts of employed and unemployed people in the labour market as part of the examination of the impact of the measures taken to improve the employment rate. The graph has now been updated with the latest data for September 2019 to September 2020. These data make it already possible to assess the impacts of the coronavirus epidemic. You can view the visualization here.
Between July and September this year, 88,000 people remained unemployed, 75,000 became employed, and 82,000 moved outside the labour force. The number of employed people who moved outside the labour force between the first and second quarter of 2020 compared with the previous quarter was almost twice as high than in the corresponding period in 2019.
The impact of the Covid-19 epidemic is also visible in the rate at which people have changed jobs. In 2019, the number of people who changed jobs increased steadily from the previous quarter, but this year the rate has slowed down.
The data show that the unemployed are a constantly changing group from which people move both to the employed and outside the labour force and back. Some people remain unemployed for several years, others only for a few weeks. In addition to economic cycles, the shifts are impacted by labour market policy measures and participation in activation services.
The statistics illustrated in the graph are based on the data of the monthly Labour Force Survey of Statistics Finland. The data have been updated by a longitudinal sample from the samples of the first three quarters of 2020.
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