– The labour market remained subdued, and unemployment continued to increase in February. We see a decrease in the number of temporary employees, according to seasonally adjusted and smoothed data, while permanent employees increased, says Louise Stener, statistician at the Labour Force Surveys at Statistics Sweden.

Labour force

In February 2025, the number of people in the labour force aged 15–74 amounted to 5 691 000, not seasonally adjusted. The number of women in the labour force was 2 696 000. The number of men amounted to 2 995 000. The labour force participation rate amounted to 74.7 percent. For women the labour force participation rate was 71.9 percent and for men it was 77.4 percent.

Seasonally adjusted and smoothed data show an increase in both the number and the share of people in the labour force, compared with recent months. The number of people in the labour force amounted to 5 750 000, which corresponds to a labour force participation rate of 75.5 percent.

Employment

The number of employed people aged 15–74 amounted to 5 158 000 in February 2025, not seasonally adjusted. The number of employed women was 2 453 000 and the number of employed men was 2 705 000. The employment rate amounted to 67.7 percent. The employment rate among women was 65.4 percent, a decrease of 1.6 percentage points. For men it was 69.9 percent.

The number of employed people aged 15–74 amounted to 5 234 000, seasonally adjusted and smoothed. This corresponds to an employment rate of 68.7 percent.

Employees

In February 2025, the number of employees amounted to 4 665 000, according to not seasonally adjusted data. The number of employees among women was 2 327 000 while the number of employees among men was 2 338 000. The number of permanent employees amounted to 4 122 000. The number of permanent employees among women was 2 020 000 and among men the number was 2 102 000. The number of temporary employees amounted to 543 000. Among women the number of temporary employees was 306 000 and among men the number was 237 000.

The number of employees increased compared with recent months and amounted to 4 738 000 according to seasonally adjusted and smoothed data. Of these, 4 120 000 were permanent employees and 618 000 were temporary employees. Compared with recent months, the number of permanent employees increased, while the number of temporary employees decreased.

Hours worked

The average number of total hours worked in February 2025 amounted to 170.5 million per week, according to not seasonally adjusted data.

Seasonally adjusted and smoothed data show an increase in the number of hours worked compared with recent months. The average number of hours worked amounted to 155.9 million per week.

Unemployment

In February 2025, the number of unemployed people aged 15–74 amounted to 533 000, not seasonally adjusted. This corresponds to an unemployment rate of 9.4 percent, an increase of 0.9 percentage points. The number of unemployed women was 243 000 and the number of unemployed men was 290 000. The unemployment rate amounted to 9.0 percent for women and 9.7 percent for men. The number of long-term unemployed people, unemployed for at least 27 weeks, amounted to 176 000. The number of long-term unemployed women was 79 000 and number of long-term unemployed men was 97 000. The number of unemployed young people aged 15–24 amounted to 181 000. The youth unemployment rate was 28.1 percent. Among unemployed young people, 125 000 were full-time students.

Compared with recent months, the number of unemployed people aged 15–74 increased to 517 000, according to seasonally adjusted and smoothed data. The unemployment rate also increased and amounted to 9.0 percent. Among young people aged 15–24 the number of unemployed amounted to 173 000 and the unemployment rate was 25.1 percent. Compared with recent months, this is an increase in both the number and the share of unemployed young people.

Unused labour supply

Unemployed people, underemployed people and latent jobseekers together constitute the unused labour supply. In February 2025, the unused labour supply averaged 25.3 million hours per week. This is an increase of 2.9 million hours compared to the corresponding month one year ago. The unused labour supply corresponds to 633 000 full-time employments with 40-hour work weeks.

2025-03-25 at 08:00.