Unemployment
23. Feb 2024
Unemployment at 1%
Unemployed people are registered as unemployed with the Faroese unemployment system and the social welfare services, fully available to the labour market and actively seeking work.
In January, the Faroese unemployment rate was 1.0%, which is equivalent to 316 full-time unemployed people. In January, the rate was 0.9%, with 282 full-time unemployed people.
A full-time unemployed person is defined as one who is unemployed throughout a full month. If two persons are affected by unemployment for half a month each, they are converted to one full-time unemployed person for the month in question. In January, 379 people were affected by unemployment, an increase of 51 on January 2023.
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More unemployed men than women
There were 187 full-time unemployed men in January, equivalent to 1.2% of the labour force. This is a year-on-year increase of 0.3%. The January unemployment rate for women was 0.9%, down 0.1% year-on-year. The sex difference in the unemployment rate has thus increased slightly.
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Lowest rate in Norðoyggjar and Vágar
The map below shows the unemployment rates by region. In January, Norðoyggjar had the lowest rate at 0.6%, followed by Vágar at 0.7%. Suðuroy had the highest rate at 1.5%, followed by Norðstreymoy’s 1.4%.
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Lowest unemployment in age group 55-66
The 55-66 age group had an unemployment rate of 0.8% in January. The highest rate (1.4%) was in the 25-34 age group.
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8.2% are long-term unemployed
The graph below shows how long people have been unemployed. In January, 31 people (8.2% of all unemployed people) were long-term unemployed, i.e. they had been out of work for more than a year. In January 2023, there were also 31 people listed as being long-term unemployed, but this figure made up 10.4% of all unemployed people at the time).
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Unemployment as a concept
Statistics Faroe Islands and other statistics agencies across the world use the definitions of unemployment given by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), which is a United Nations agency.
According to this definition, the unemployment rate reflects the proportion of the labour force that does not have a job, is available to the labour market and is actively looking for work.
In the monthly unemployment reports from Statistics Faroe Islands, unemployed people are defined as those who are registered as unemployed with the Faroese unemployment system and the social welfare services and who meet the above definition of unemployment.