Vacancies on the rise while employment rate drops

There were a total of 136 thousand unfilled job vacancies in the Netherlands in the second quarter of this year - an increase of 40 thousand compared to 2013, when the number of vacancies reached a low point. The employment rate, the percentage of the labor force with a paid job, dropped across all provinces compared to before the crisis in 2008. This is according to figures released by Statistics Netherlands on Tuesday. The number of vacancies differs by province. Last year Friesland, Groningen and Flevoland roughly had one vacancy for every ten unemployed people. In Utrecht and Noord-Holland there was one vacancy for every four or five unemployed. The national average was one vacancy for every six unemployed people. Shortly before the start of the economic crisis in 2008, the number of vacancies was about equal to the number of unemployed. More than half of the growth in vacancies can be attributed to the provinces of Noord-Holland, Zuid-Holland and Noord Brabant. 75 thousand of the open vacancies are in these provinces. The employment rate declined in all provinces since 2008. Flevoland showed the strongest decline - from 71 percent of the inhabitants between the ages of 15 and 75 years having paid work before the crisis to 65 percent last year. The municipalities with the lowest employment rates in 2014 were mostly in Groningen and Limburg. Vaals is the municipality with the lowest employment rate at 52.2 percent, followed by Kerkrade and Bellingwedde at 57 percent. At 58 percent employment rate, Rotterdam is the only municipality on the list that is not in Groningen or Limburg. The unemployment rate also differed by province. The national average is that 7.4 percent of the Dutch population was unemployed last year. The percentage was significantly higher in Flevoland with 9.3 percent, and considerably lower in Zeeland at 5.5 percent.