Unemployment drops among older workers

For the second quarter in a row, there was a decrease in unemployment among workers aged 55 years and older in the Netherlands, according to figures Statistics Netherlands released on Thursday. According to the statistics office, the workforce in this age group increased, but the number of people in this group working increased more. In the second quarter of this year 7.4 percent of the work force aged 55 to 75 years were unemployed, compared to 7.9 percent a year earlier. Despite the decrease, 70 percent of the unemployed people in this group have been looking for work for more than a year. Long-term unemployment in the Netherlands is highest among older workers. Counting the entire Dutch workforce, 557 thousand people were unemployed in the second quarter of 2016. That is a decrease of 58 thousand compared to the same quarter last year. The number of long-term unemployed people dropped by 35 thousand to 235 thousand in this period.