The main results of Statistics Iceland's labour force survey for the second quarter of 2024 show that the activity rate of people aged 16 to 74 years has never been higher since continuous measurement began in 2003. The activity rate was measured at 83.6% and to find a comparable measurement, one must look back to 2016.
The number of people aged 16 to 74 who were in the labour force in the second quarter of 2024 was 241,600 people. Their percentage of the population (activity rate), was, as mentioned before, 83.6%, which is 1.7 percentage points higher than in the same quarter of 2023, when activity rate was measured at 81.9%. The number of women was 109,600 or 79.6% activity rate and men were 132,000 or 87.3% activity rate.
The total number of employed in the second quarter of 2024 was 232,900 people, and the employment rate of the population was 80.6%. From the second quarter of 2023 to the second quarter of 2024, the number of employed increased by 10,800 people, and its percentage of the population increased by one and a half percentage point. The employment rate for women was 77.3% and for men 83.7%. The number of employed women increased by 4,500 and the number of men increased by 6,400. The employment rate in the Capital region was 79.8% while the rate was 82.1% outside it.
In comparison, 222,100 were employed in the second quarter of 2023 and employment rate was 79.3%. At that time, the employment rate for women was 75.8% and 82.2% for men. The employment rate in the Capital region was 79.4% and 78.6% for those living outside the region.
Of employed individuals in the second quarter of 2024, the number of people working full-time was 177,900, or 76.4%, and 55,000 were working part-time or 23.6%. The number of people in full-time employment increased by 7,000 from the second quarter of 2023 and their percentage of employed people increased by 0.6 percentage points. Of employed women, 64.5% worked full-time jobs in the second quarter of 2024 and 86.3% of employed men. Of those who worked part-time in the second quarter of 2024, 10,700 were underemployed or 4.6% of all employed. For comparison, 9,300 persons were considered underemployed in the same quarter of 2023 or 4.2%. The definition of underemployed are those who work part-time and want to work more.
Average working hours
In the second quarter of 2024, the average working hours was measured 36.4 hours per week for those who were at work in the reference week. In comparison, the average number of hours worked was 35.8 in the second quarter of 2023, so the average number of hours per week has increased by 36 minutes per week. In the second quarter of 2024 the average working hours for women was 32.5 and 39.5 hours for men. In comparison, women worked an average of 31.9 hours and men 39.5 hours in the second quarter of 2023. The same difference is between the average number of total working hours of men and women in the second quarter of 2023 and 2024, or seven hours.
The unemployment rate was 3.6% in the second quarter
The average number of persons in unemployment in the second quarter of 2024 was 8,700 persons, or 3.6% of the labour force 16 to 74 years old. Among women, unemployment was 3.0% and among men it was 3.4%. In comparison, around 7,800 people were unemployed in the second quarter of 2023, and the unemployment rate was 3.4%. Unemployment rate among women was then 2.6% and among men 4.1%.
Within the age group 16 to 24 years, the unemployment rate was 11.1%, which is an increase by 1.4 precentage points from what it was in the same quarter in 2023 when it was 9.7%. For those 25 to 54 year olds the unemployment rate was 2.6% which is nearly the same as it was in the second quarter of 2023. For the oldest group, 55-74 years old, the unemployment rate was 1.1% compared with 1.0% in the second quarter of 2023