Dutch economy rosy after data revised

The Netherlands is one of the first countries in the EU taking on the new international guideline for national accounts.This influences already-published macro-economic figures and also earlier estimations of the economic growth in the first quarter, the Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS) reports. 

This process of framing national accounts according to international regulations takes place regularly, and is called a 'revision'.

This revision of framing guidelines has had an influence on previously published estimations of the economy. The first quarter figures for gas production and consumption, for example, was a lot lower in 2014 than in 2013. This was because of a mild winter.

The weight of the production and consumption of natural gas in the total Dutch economy decreased. Because of the new regulation, however, the strong decrease has less influence on growth figures from the total economy in the second estimation than it did in the first.

The first estimation of the economic growth in the first quarter of 2014 was published by the CBS on the 15th of May, and came out at a drop of 1.4 percent. The new EU guidelines necessitate a second estimation, however, which changes the figure to a drop of 0.6 percent.

This effect is caused by the availability of additional information from companies from the business services and restaurant and hotel (horeca) sectors. At the first estimation, the CBS has 30 percent of the information needed for calculations from these businesses. After 90 days, a second estimation is made, at which time 90 percent of the information from companies has become available.

On the basis of this additional information, it seems that developments in the horeca and business services sectors was even more positive than earlier predicted. This also means that economic growth is higher than previously calculated.

Employment statistics have also been altered. According to the second estimation, there were 21 thousand fewer obs than in the previous quarter. The first estimation calculated a decrease by 32 thousand jobs. Salaries per year were 1.5 percent higher than in the first quarter of 2013.

Compared to the first three months of 2013, there was a loss of 114 thousand jobs in The Netherlands in the first quarter of 2014, the CBS writes.