Labour force survey, seasonally-adjusted figures, March 2001

Adjusted for seasonal variations 19 000 more persons where employed by March this year than by December last year. The number of unemployed persons fell by 7 000 from December 2000 to March 2001.

At the same time the number of man-weeks worked increased by 38 000. This increase must be seen in connection with the figure of man-weeks worked December 2000, which was considerably lower than in the preceding and following month.

Previous to the seasonal adjustment, we also make adjustments for holidays that fall in random months every year. This year, like in the previous, the Easter holiday was in April. Because of this, the main figures for April were based on interviews only from three weeks. The Easter week was left out. Due to the fact that Easter Monday was included in the April interviews we adjust the figure of man-weeks worked, like last year, up by 139 000 before seasonal adjustment. The adjustments are made so that the relative change in average weekly working hours from November to April this year is like last year's.

The purpose of adjusting for seasonal variations is to give figures for changes for the last three months and to describe the development during the last year. Please use unadjusted figures from the LFS in order to get appropriate quarterly figures.

Tables:

• Table 1. Persons aged 16-74 years by labour force status, seasonally adjusted, three-months moving average. 1000