The main results of Statistics Iceland's labour force survey for the first quarter of 2024 show that the status of the workforce within the Icelandic labour market has remained rather stable over the past three years.
The proportion of the population aged 16-74 years in the labour market (activity rate) was 80.4% in the first quarter of 2024, which is one percentage point higher that it was in the same quarter of 2023 when it measured 79.4%. The total number of employed in the first quarter of 2024 was 220,800 and the employment rate of the population 77.0%.
Comparison between the first quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024 shows that the number of employed increased by 8,500 and the employment rate increased by 0.7 percentage points. The employment rate for women was measured at 74.0% and for men at 79.7% in the first quarter of 2024. The number of employed women increased by 3,800 and the number of men increased by 4,700. The employment rate in the Capital region was 76.8% while the rate was 77.4% outside it.
In comparison, 212,300 were employed in the first quarter of 2023 and the proportion of the population was 76.3%. At that time, the employment rate for women was 73.0% and 79.4% for men. The employment rate in the Capital region was 76.7% and 75.7% for those living outside the region.
Of employed individuals in the first quarter of 2024, the number of people working full-time was 164,000 or, 74.3%, and 56,800 were working part-time or 25.7%. The number of people in full-time employment increased by 8,700 from the first quarter of 2023 and their percentage of employed people increased by 1.1 percentage point. Of employed women, 65.3% worked full-time jobs in the first quarter of 2024 and 81.9% of employed men. Of those who worked part-time in the first quarter of 2024, 9,900 were underemployed or 4.5% of all employed. For comparison, 8,600 persons were considered underemployed in the same quarter of 2023 or 4.1%. The definition of underemployed are those who work part-time and want to work more.
Average working hours
In the first quarter of 2024, the average working hours was measured 34.9 hours per week for those who were at work in the reference week. In comparison, the average number of hours worked was 37.1 in the first quarter of 2023, so the average number of hours per week has decreased by 2.2 hours per week. In the first quarter of 2024 the average working hours for women was 31.7 and 37.6 hours for men. In comparison, women worked an average of 33.1 hours and men 40.3 hours in the first quarter of 2023. The difference between the average number of hours of men and women shrunk from 7.2 hours in the first quarter of 2023 to 5.9 hours in the first quarter of 2024.
The unemployment rate was 4.2% in the first quarter
The average number of persons in unemployment in the first quarter of 2024 was 9,700 persons, or 4.2% of the labour force 16 to 74 years old. Among women, unemployment was 3.6% and among men it was 4.7%. In comparison, around 8,400 people were unemployed in the first quarter of 2023, and the unemployment rate was 3.8%. Unemployment rate among women was then 2.6% and among men 4.9%.
Within the age group 16 to 24 years, the unemployment rate was 8.3%, which is a decrease by 0.8 precentage points from what it was in the same quarter in 2023 when it was 9.1%. For those 25 to 54 year olds the unemployment rate was 3.9% which is half a percentage point lower than it was in the first quarter of 2023. For the oldest group, 55-74 years old, unemployment rate was 2.1% compared with 1.5% in the first quarter of 2023