Employment, jobs and unemployment

At the end of April 2023, there were a total of 12,502 unemployed people in Espoo, and the unemployed accounted for 8.1 per cent of the labour force. In Finland as a whole, the unemployed accounted for 9.3 per cent of the labour force. A total of 1,003 under 25-year-olds and 4,237 over 50-year-olds were unemployed in Espoo. Women accounted for 45 per cent of the unemployed. The number of long-term unemployed people (i.e. people who have been unemployed continuously for more than a year) was 4,804, i.e. 37.5 per cent of the unemployed. Espoo’s Employment and Economic Development Office had 2,924 vacancies.

Compared to the situation one year earlier, the number of unemployed people increased by 5.3 per cent (649 people) and the share of unemployed jobseekers in the labour force was 0.0 - 0.5 percentage points higher. In Finland, the number of unemployed people was 3.1 per cent higher than one year earlier. In Espoo, the number of under 25-year-old unemployed people increased by 6.0 per cent (58 people) in comparison with the previous year. The number of long-term unemployed people was 14.2 per cent (797 people) lower than a year earlier. The number of vacancies was 26 per cent (1,028 jobs) lower than a year earlier.

In April 2023, there were still 1,870 more unemployed people and the share of unemployed jobseekers in the labour force was 0.7 percentage points higher than four years earlier, when the coronavirus pandemic did not affect the employment situation.

The number of vacancies increased rapidly since the beginning of 2021, but decreased in Noveber for the first time after 21 months.

The latest unemployment data is available as a Power BI presentation(external link) (non-accessible).

There is a great deal of seasonal variation in the unemployment figures. The number of unemployed people is always highest in June and July. One of the reasons behind this is that new people enter the labour market when students graduate at the end of the school year.

The figures are based on the employment service statistics of the Ministry of Employment and the Economy. The unemployment figures include both unemployed and laid-off people.

The City of Espoo publishes an employment and unemployment review four times a year in the quarterly Eetvartti publication (in Finnish).

Contact information
Information Services Manager
Petri Lintunen
Tel. +358 43 8265211
petri.lintunen@espoo.fi

According to the latest information from the business register, there were approximately 20,500 companies in Espoo in the first half of 2021. Excluding limited liability housing companies and agricultural, forestry and fishing industry companies, there were approximately 14,700 companies at the end of 2019.

The most recent official data concerning the number of jobs is from 2019, when there were 126,820 jobs in Espoo. The situation after 2019 can be examined, for example, based on the Labour Force Survey by Statistics Finland. However, there is a great deal of random variation in the survey figures even for the largest cities. For this reason, the figures for Espoo should also be considered a rough indication of the development. The Labour Force Survey is commonly used to monitor employment and the development of the job situation at both the national and the regional level. According to the official figures and those based on the Labour Force Survey, the estimated number of jobs in Espoo was approximately 135,000 in 2021.

Commerce, the software and consultancy sector, education and social welfare services were the largest providers of employment in Espoo in 2018.

The number of jobs in companies can be examined in real time but still rather reliably through the indicator for the number of staff. Between January and November 2021, there were approximately 117,000 jobs in companies based on man-years (Statistics Finland, tailored trend indicator service).

Contact information
Information Services Manager
Petri Lintunen
Tel. +358 43 8265211
petri.lintunen@espoo.fi

At the end of 2021, the employment rate of 20–64-year-olds in Espoo was 75.7%. Employment rate refers to the percentage of employed people among the population of the same age. The employment rate of people aged 20–64 was 80.3% among those of Finnish origin and 60.4% among those of foreign origin. Compared to the previous year, the employment rate increased by 2.3 percentage points among people of Finnish origin and increased by 3.4 percentage points among people of foreign origin. A person whose both parents or only known parent were born abroad is considered to be a person of foreign origin. A person’s background country is primarily the country of birth of their biological mother and secondarily the country of birth of their father. If neither parent’s country of birth is known, the person’s background country is their own country of birth.

The employment rate of 20–64-year-olds of foreign origin varies greatly according to the background continent: at the end of 2021, the employment rate was 67.4% (11,705 employed individuals) among people of European origin, 61.1% (7,089) among people of Asian origin, 58.8% (827) among people of American origin, 53.7% (2,607) among people of African origin and 42.4% (2,263) among people of Middle Eastern origin. There were 676 employed people whose background country is unknown.

At the end of 2021, 8.9% of the labour force in Espoo were unemployed. The share of the unemployed was 6.9% among the labour force of Finnish origin and 16.9% among the labour force of foreign origin. Compared to the previous year, the share of unemployed people decreased by 2.5 percentage points among the labour force of Finnish origin and decreased by 3.6 percentage points among the labour force of foreign origin.

At the end of 2021, the share of unemployed people in the labour force was 13.2% (1 085 unemployed individuals) among people of Asian origin, 13.9% (1,933) among those of European origin, 15.6% (155) among those of American origin, 22.3% (763) among those of African origin and 33.7% (1 184) among those of Middle Eastern origin. There were 107 unemployed people whose background country is unknown.

At the end of 2020, professionals formed the largest occupational group among employed people of both Finnish and foreign origin. However, the percentage was smaller among those of foreign origin (28.8%) than among those of Finnish origin (38.2%). The second-largest occupational group among people of foreign origin was service and sales workers (18.1% of employed people of foreign origin), and the third-largest category was ‘other occupational groups’ (14.3%), which includes, for example, cleaners and warehouse workers.

Source: Statistics Finland

Contact information
Research Sanna Jaatinen
Tel. +358 40 5904260
sanna.jaatinen@espoo.fi