Labour force survey, seasonally-adjusted figures, May 2004

The latest figure for May (the April-June period) shows that unemployment increased by 5 000 people from February (January-March), which is on level with the error margin. As a result, the downward trend that has been evident since June (May-July) last year appears to have been levelling out. Seasonally adjusted figures of registered unemployment at job centres show no significant change from February to May.

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

Unemployment still rising in Sweden

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Norway was 4.5 per cent in May 2004, compared with 4.3 per cent in February. Unemployment in the EU and OECD area was unchanged at 8.1 and 6.9 per cent respectively in the same period. Unemployment stayed unchanged in the USA too, at 5.6 per cent from February to May. Sweden saw unemployment grow from 6.4 to 6.7 per cent, and Finland from 9.0 to 9.1 per cent. In Germany unemployment rose from 9.6 to 9.8 per cent, while the figure for France stayed unchanged at 9.4 per cent, according to figures from the OECD and Eurostat .

Man-weeks worked have shown a downward trend since the summer of 1998. But from February to May 2004 man-weeks worked increased by 42 000, which is clearly outside the error margin. The increase must however be seen in connection with the exceptional number of people who took time off work around New Year's Day, resulting in an extraordinary low level of man-weeks worked in February (the January-March period).

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 in the last year and to 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 May represent the average of the estimates for April, May and June.

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.