According to the Employment Service Statistics, at the end of January the number of unemployed jobseekers registered at Employment and Economic Development Offices totalled 296,600, up 50,200 on the previous year. Compared with December, the number of unemployed jobseekers decreased by 4,000.

In January, 35,400 of the unemployed were individually laid-off. Since January a year ago, the number of individual lay-offs has increased by 8,900.

The number of new vacancies reported to Employment and Economic Development Offices during January totalled 38,300, or 7,000 less than January in the previous year.

Of unemployed jobseekers, 180,100 (61%) were men and 116,500 (39%) women. At the end of January, unemployed jobseekers under 25 years of age numbered 37,800, representing an increase by 7,500 from January a year ago.

The number of foreign citizens among unemployed jobseekers totalled 17,400, up 3,200 from January a year ago. Of these foreign unemployed jobseekers, EU/EEA citizens accounted for 4,000 at the end of January, up 1,000 from the year before.