The Jakobstad region has for a long time showed the lowest unemployment rate at the mainland of Finland. In January 2024, it was 5,8 per cent in the region compared to 10.9 per cent in the whole country. Existing companies are thus facing challenges in finding talents. The number of job vacancies in the beginning of the year broke all records with 1,500 job vacancies in January – but it should be remembered that summer jobs are included. Typical for us and other regions is also that cities usually have a slightly higher unemployment rate than rural municipalities.
The Jakobstad region has over 22,000 jobs, of which 32% are in the manufacturing industry. 5.8% unemployment means a total of about 1,500 workers who are unemployed in all sectors. The lowest unemployment rate in the region since the pandemic has been 3.9% on two occasions. There are always normal changes during the year and unemployment is often highest in July and quite high in December. Here we are completely following the normal fluctuations found in the rest of Finland.
We can still see some deterioration lately, although it is small. Unemployment has a slightly growing trend and layoffs have also increased somewhat at the end of 2023, compared with previous years. Here we may see signs of the uncertainty we see in the world around us.
