{"id":777456,"date":"2026-07-03T10:41:36","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T10:41:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/777456\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T10:41:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T10:41:36","slug":"hypo-finlands-economy-seeing-strongest-growth-in-5-years-yle-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/777456\/","title":{"rendered":"Hypo: Finland&#8217;s economy seeing strongest growth in 5 years | Yle News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"aw__sc-1qwuw0s-0 aw__sc-1vg2sqm-0 epAWpq ecELkD yle__article__paragraph\">There are mixed messages in Finland&#8217;s economic outlook: growth and confidence are on the rise while inflation is slowing \u2013 yet unemployment remains sky-high.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A crane above a block of flats under construction, seen against a blue sky.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1782826176.jpeg\" class=\"aw__sc-dklauk-0 LPzKX\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Open image viewer<\/p>\n<p>A new building going up in Tampere&#8217;s Hiedanranta neighbourhood last week. Image: Miikka Varila \/ Yle<\/p>\n<p class=\"aw__sc-1qwuw0s-0 aw__sc-ngllmo-0 epAWpq fzYpjk yle__article__paragraph\">The Finnish economy is growing at its fastest pace in five years, according to the Mortgage Society of Finland (Hypo).<\/p>\n<p class=\"aw__sc-1qwuw0s-0 aw__sc-ngllmo-0 epAWpq fzYpjk yle__article__paragraph\">Hypo forecasts growth of 1.5 percent this year and 1.7 percent next year, although wars and conflicts, global trade relations and interest rate uncertainty are holding back the Finnish economy&#8217;s recovery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"aw__sc-1qwuw0s-0 aw__sc-ngllmo-0 epAWpq fzYpjk yle__article__paragraph\">Public confidence is also now at its highest level since 2022, while inflation has slowed slightly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"aw__sc-1qwuw0s-0 aw__sc-ngllmo-0 epAWpq fzYpjk yle__article__paragraph\">However, unemployment remains stubbornly high, at the worst level since the <a class=\"aw__sc-ngllmo-1 bTDnwX yle__article__link\" href=\"https:\/\/yle.fi\/a\/74-20233070\" role=\"link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">late 1990s<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"aw__sc-1qwuw0s-0 aw__sc-ngllmo-0 epAWpq fzYpjk yle__article__paragraph\">&#8220;Uncertainty has not disappeared: the rising unemployment rate and the large number of bankruptcies are overshadowing the prospects of both households and companies, and the bottleneck in the energy market caused by the Gulf crisis is affecting interest rates and stifling growth,&#8221; Hypo\u2019s chief economist, Juho Keskinen, said in a press release.<\/p>\n<p class=\"aw__sc-1qwuw0s-0 aw__sc-ngllmo-0 epAWpq fzYpjk yle__article__paragraph\">Keskinen predicts that this year\u2019s unemployment rate will average 10.8 percent, dropping to 10 percent next year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"aw__sc-1qwuw0s-0 aw__sc-ngllmo-0 epAWpq fzYpjk yle__article__paragraph\">The purchasing power of those who have jobs is strengthening, but it\u2019s become tougher for young people to get a foothold in the labour market, while average stints of unemployment have become longer and part-time work has become the new normal, Hypo notes.<\/p>\n<p>Inflation slows a bit<\/p>\n<p class=\"aw__sc-1qwuw0s-0 aw__sc-ngllmo-0 epAWpq fzYpjk yle__article__paragraph\">Meanwhile, Finland&#8217;s EU-harmonised inflation slowed to 2.7 percent in June, Statistics Finland said on Wednesday. The rate edged down from 2.8 percent in May.<\/p>\n<p class=\"aw__sc-1qwuw0s-0 aw__sc-ngllmo-0 epAWpq fzYpjk yle__article__paragraph\">The biggest cost increase was in education services, which rose by 11.5 percent. Transport ranked second with a year-on-year rise of 6.4 percent. Average prices for food and non-alcoholic beverages rose by about one percent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"aw__sc-1qwuw0s-0 aw__sc-ngllmo-0 epAWpq fzYpjk yle__article__paragraph\">The EU\u2019s Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices does not include loan interest rates and investments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are mixed messages in Finland&#8217;s economic outlook: growth and confidence are on the rise while inflation is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":777457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":["post-777456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}