On a weekday morning in Helsinki, Kari, a 52-year-old construction worker, scrolls through job postings on his phone. The list is short, and most of the openings don’t match his skills. “I’ve been out of work for 14 months,” he says. “I used to get calls back within a week. Now I don’t even get a reply.” He’s part of a growing group: the long-term unemployed.
That group is swelling at a rate not seen in decades. In July 2025, 128,900 Finns had been jobless for over a year—30,200 more than last summer and the highest figure in more than twenty years. In total, 269,000 people were unemployed, up 40,000 from July 2024. Employment itself shrank by 43,000 over the year, leaving 2.637 million people in work. The result is a labour market where many wait endlessly for a foothold while others struggle to find enough staff.
The headline unemployment rate tells part of the story. It stood at 9.9% in June 2025 and dipped slightly to 9.3% in July, an improvement from May’s peak of 10.5%. But compared to the previous summer, when the rate was just 7.9%, the rise is sharp. For young people the blow is harsher still: unemployment among 15-to-24-year-olds jumped from 11.5% in July 2024 to 16.8% this July.
Behind those numbers lies a shrinking pool of opportunities. Only 27,200 new vacancies were reported in July 2025—barely half the level seen two years ago. That scarcity makes the odds worse for people like Kari, who are competing against tens of thousands of others for each posting.
Meanwhile, some employers can’t hire fast enough. At a care home outside Tampere, manager Sari Lehtonen says her team is desperate for more nurses and support staff. “We’ve had open positions for months,” she explains. “The need keeps growing as the population ages, but qualified people just aren’t applying.” The same shortage is hitting hospitals, schools, ICT firms, and restaurants, especially for trained chefs and waiters.
This imbalance—workers stuck in declining industries like construction, logistics, and transport, while shortages grow in care, education, and tech—is what makes the recovery so difficult. Retraining programs exist, but switching careers is rarely quick or easy, especially for older workers.
Economists predict modest relief starting in 2026, when employment is expected to grow again. But long-term unemployment may still rise before that recovery gains pace. Immigration and older Finns staying in the workforce will expand the labour supply, which could keep unemployment high in the short run.
For Kari, the statistics confirm what he already feels in his daily search. “They say the rate dropped from June to July, but for me, nothing has changed,” he says. For Sari, the care home manager, the problem looks different but just as pressing. “Every month we stay understaffed, the pressure on our employees and residents grows. We can’t wait years for solutions.”
Between those two perspectives lies Finland’s dilemma: a labour market where too many are left waiting, and too few are walking through the door where they’re most needed.
Monthly unemployment rate in Finland for the first seven months of 2025, illustrating the recent trend:
| Month | Unemployment Rate (%) | Notes |
| January | 10.0 | Early 2025 data |
| February | 9.9 | Slight improvement |
| March | 9.2 | EUROSTAT confirmed |
| April | 10.1 | Slight rise |
| May | 10.5 | Peak in 6-month period |
| June | 9.9 | Decline from May |
| July | 9.3 | Latest figure |