Labour force survey, seasonally-adjusted figures, June 2004

The latest figure for June (the May-July period) shows that unemployment remained unchanged from the previous month (April-June). Compared with June last year too, unemployment has only shown a minor decline. Seasonally adjusted figures of registered unemployment at job centres plus government measures to promote employment have remained more or less unchanged over the last year and approximately on level with the number of unemployed according to the Labour Force Survey (LFS).

Following a long period of decline, employment started to increase in June 2003. In June this year the number of employees was unchanged from the previous month. Still, employment appears to be in an upward trend.

Lower unemployment in Finland

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Norway was 4.5 per cent in June 2004, compared with 4.3 per cent in March. In the same period, unemployment in the EU and OECD area was approximately unchanged at 8.1 and 6.9 per cent respectively. In June, unemployment stood at 5.6 per cent in the USA, down 0.1 percentage point from March. Sweden saw unemployment grow from 6.3 to 6.6 per cent, while Finland had a fall in unemployment from 9.0 to 8.8 per cent. In France and Germany unemployment stayed approximately unchanged at 9.5 and 9.8 per cent respectively, according to figures from the OECD and Eurostat .

Man-weeks worked have shown a downward trend between June 1998 and May 2003. Since then, however, there have been signs of an increasing trend in these figures. From March to June this year man-weeks worked stayed approximately unchanged.

Uncertain figures

Quality tests show that the seasonally adjusted LFS unemployment figures are uncertain. The seasonal-adjustment method has problems identifying a stable seasonal pattern for this series. The random component is relatively large compared with the seasonal component. The figures should therefore be treated with caution.

The purpose of adjusting for seasonal variations is to describe the development over the last year and provide figures of change between the last two three-month periods, corrected for normal seasonal variations. In order to reduce uncertainty, the published series are three-month moving averages of the seasonally adjusted figures. For instance, the figures for June represent the average of the estimates for May, June and July.

Tables:

• Table 1. Employment and unemployment for persons aged 16-74 years, seasonally adjusted, three-months moving average. Absolute figures in 1000 and unemployed persons in per cent of the labour force.