An unemployed individual is defined as currently being without work, fully available to the labour market and actively seeking employment.

Definitions:

• Unemployed are individuals between 16-66 years and are registered as unemployed in the Faroese unemployment system and/or the social services.
• Affected by unemployment: The number of people who have been unemployed for one or more days in a month.
• Full-time unemployment: Since not everyone is unemployed every day of a given month, all individuals affected by unemployment are converted to full-time unemployed. For example, two persons who have been unemployed for half a month each are counted as one full-time unemployed person.
• Unemployment rate: The full-time unemployment rate in % relative to the size of the labour force.
• Labour force is an international measurement which counts the number of residents aged 15-66 who are capable of work.
• Seasonally adjusted figures are adjusted for seasonal variations such as recurring seasonal activity patterns
• Trend describes the unemployment trend by adjusting for seasonal effects and error components in the figures.
• EA refers to the euro area with a fixed area composition of the current 19 countries.
• EU (from June 2020) refers to EU27_2020, which is the European Union with a fixed area composition of the current 27 countries.

The annual figures from the labour force survey should be used for making international comparisons of unemployment.

Why is there a two-month lag in the unemployment figures?

Many delayed entries are filed after the end of the registered month. A two-month lag helps ensure accuracy in the statistics.