Mainly it is the older members of the labour force who suffer from long-term unemployment

Helsinki (13.07.2007 - Juhani Artto) Long-term unemployment has become a problem that mainly concerns older people. Two thirds of the long-term unemployed are 50 years of age or older, the latest Ministry of Labour statistics indicate.

In the last few years, long-term unemployment has decreased in all age groups except for the oldest category (from 60 to 64 years of age).

In 1996, a couple of years after the end of the early 1990s recession, the labour authorities monthly registered about 140 000 unemployed job seekers whose unemployment had lasted for at least a year. Now the total amount of persons in the same category is 50 000 and going rapidly down.

Among young people there is hardly any long-term unemployment these days. Only 2 per cent of unemployed youth suffer from long-time unemployment, and no more than 1 per cent of the long-time unemployed are young.

An important factor behind young peoples improved employment opportunities is down to special legislation. Authorities are obliged to offer all unemployed, younger than 25 years of age, either a job or further education, practical training or workshop activity. This system is called the Youth Society Guarantee*.

The quantitative results of the system are impressive but when using qualitative criteria the results are not so good. A relatively large proportion of the jobs and other options, offered to the unemployed young people, are not very attractive. They may mean low pay and short-time employment relations or practical training that does not prepare young people for satisfactory work careers.

Youth unemployment has, continuously gone down since 1993. In 1993 there were four times more young unemployed job seekers than in 2006.

* The Youth Society Guarantee aiming at reducing and preventing youth unemployment will be implemented for the period 2003-2007. In this inter-sectoral employment programme, the labour authorities have the principal responsibility for implementing the society guarantee for unemployed young people while the education authorities are responsible for the education and training guarantee. The Youth Society Guarantee is composed of intensified labour services, inter-sectoral service co-operation, labour market measures and programmes for young people. The main target group is young people (<25 years) who have been unemployed for three months. The main aim of the guarantee is that every young unemployed person should be offered a place in further education, practical training, or workshop activity after a period of three months unemployment. (Shaping the future: Connecting career development and workforce development by Felt, Kasurinen, Koivumäki, Piikkilä, Tallqvist and Vuorinen, Finland country paper 21-24 April 2006)