Clarification on job vacancies

- The public debate has raised questions as to whether the increase in the number of vacancies observed in June 2025 is due to the actual increase in the number of jobs or statistical issues. The increase in the number of vacancies in June 2025 is explained by two factors: the figures for the reference month (6/2024) showed fewer vacancies than there actually were, and secondly, the employment officials have had two customer information systems in parallel use in 2024–2025 that have not functioned entirely with the same characteristics, explains Olli Päärnilä from the Employment and Integration Division of the KEHA Centre.  

June 2024 statistics showed fewer vacancies than there actually were  

The lower figures in the reference month of June 2024 were influenced by several factors. The introduction of The Specialists’ Job Market Finland (A-TMT) system has been implemented in stages, while the URA information system, previously in use, has been phased out.  

- Firstly, only those job advertisements for which the employer had allowed a transfer from Job Market Finland will be transmitted to the public employment services and thus to the Employment Service Statistics. The background to this was, for example, the closure of the pass-through interface of the URA information system, which was used to transfer job advertisements to TE Services. This also affects the fact that data from June 2024 are not fully comparable with data from previous periods. The figures for June 2024 were also somewhat influenced by jobs cancelled for technical reasons, says Researcher Silja Uusikangas from the KEHA Centre.  
 
In other words, in some cases employers may have influenced the statistics on job vacancies, also unwillingly. 

Statistics choice affects the figures obtained  

In Finland, the number of jobs is monitored using several different statistical methods. The Employment Service Statistics, maintained by the KEHA Centre, are based on register-based data, the challenge of which is the under-coverage of public employment services: not all vacancies are published at Job Market Finland, for example, and so-called hidden jobs are excluded from this monitoring. The Labour Force Survey of Statistics Finland, then again, is based on sampling, which makes it possible to better perceive hidden jobs, but brings with it uncertainties, such as sampling error and limited accuracy in regional and professional examinations compared to comprehensive register data. 
 
- When examining the data in the Employment Service Statistics, it is advisable to consider whether to examine the end-of-month data or the number of jobs during a period. For example, when looking at the number of new vacancies during a period, the same job will only be included once, Uusikangas points out.  

The number of vacancies in the Employment Service Statistics for June 2025 corresponds to the number of vacancies reported to Job Market Finland

 
After the new national A-TMT customer information system has completely replaced the previous URA customer information system, in May 2025, the previous problems have been eliminated. The number of vacancies in June 2025 thus corresponds to the number of vacancies reported to Job Market Finland.