Unemployment continues steady two year decline

Unemployment in the Netherlands continued its steady decline two year decline over the past three months. The number of unemployed people fell by an average of 14 thousand per month, amounting to 574 thousand unemployed people in January - 6.5 percent of the population, according to Statistics Netherlands. There were 465 thousand active unemployment benefits end January, almost 19 thousand more than in December. The number of unemployment benefits increased the most in season-sensitive sectors such as construction, agriculture and temporary employment. Unemployment has been falling almost constantly among 25- to 45-year-olds since January 2014. Unemployment in this age group was 4.9 percent of the labor force in January, compared to 5.4 percent three months earlier. Youth unemployment also saw a relatively steady decline since 2014. Last year youth unemployment fluctuated around 11 to 11.5 percent. A decline in unemployment for over-45-year-olds only started in 2015 with the biggest decrease over the past three months. Between October 2015 and January 2016 unemployment in this group fell from 6.6 to 6.2 percent. There are 12.7 million people between the ages of 15 and 75 years living in the Netherlands. In January 8.3 million of them had paid work - 4.5 million men and 3.8 million women. Since October last year, 18 thousand people joined the paid-work-force. The remaining 4.4 million people do not have paid work. 574 thousand of them are unemployed and 3.8 million are not actively looking for work.