NL jobs increasing again after dramatic fall; Unemployment still rising

In the third quarter of this year, the number of jobs in the Netherlands increased by a record 164 thousand - after that number plummeted 297 thousand in the second quarter due to the corona crisis. The number of open vacancies also increased again in the third quarter. But so far, this has not had much effect on unemployment in the country, which increased by 70 thousand to 419 thousand unemployed people, Statistics Netherlands reported on Friday.

In the third quarter, the Netherlands counted 10,727,000 jobs, 164 thousand more than in the second quarter - an increase of 1.6 percent. "No such increase has occurred before," the stats office said. But it is not yet enough to make up for the 297 thousand jobs that disappeared in the second quarter. Currently, the number of jobs is slightly above the level of the first quarter of 2019.

The number of permanent employee jobs increased the most, by 153 thousand to a total of 8,416 thousand. The number of self-employed jobs increased by 11 thousand to a record 2,310 thousand. Self-employed jobs now account for 21 percent of all jobs in the Netherlands. The number of jobs at temporary employment agencies recovered moderately with an increase of 2.6 percent or 17 thousand jobs, but not nearly enough to cover for the 15.8 percent decrease in temp jobs in the second quarter. The number of jobs in this industry is now slightly above the level of the third quarter of 2015.

The number of open vacancies increased by 16 thousand in the third quarter to a total of 216 thousand. In the first half of the year, the number of vacancies decreased by 86 thousand, a 30 percent decrease from the record 286 thousand unfilled vacancies at the end of last year. At the end of September, most vacancies were open in trade at 42 thousand, followed by healthcare at 38 thousand, and business services at 34 thousand.

In the second and third quarter, unemployment increased dramatically in the country, by 72 thousand and 70 thousand respectively. The increase did, however, level off between July and September. In the third quarter, 4.5 percent of the working population were unemployed. According to the stats office, unemployment increased as a result of various flows in the labor market. In the third quarter, the increase was largely due to more people starting to look for work than those who found work or withdrew from the labor market for a time. In the second quarter, unemployment increased mainly because more people lost their jobs.

While the number of vacancies increased somewhat in the third quarter, the number of unemployed people increased faster. As a result, the tension on the labor market fell further to 51 vacancies per 100 unemployed. In the second quarter there were 57 vacancies. In mid 2019, the Netherlands had a record 93 vacancies per 100 unemployed.