Dutch labor market super tight: 133 vacancies per 100 unemployed

The labor market in the Netherlands is still growing tighter. In the first quarter of this year, there were 133 open vacancies per 100 unemployed people, up from 106 per 100 unemployed in the fourth quarter of 2021. The number of vacancies continues to grow as the number of unemployed people continues to fall, Statistics Netherlands reported on Tuesday. 

At the end of March, there were 451,000 vacancies in the Netherlands, 59,000 more than at the end of the fourth quarter. "This makes the increase stronger than in the previous two quarters and breaks the previous quarter's record." Then there were 392,000 vacancies. As in previous quarters, most vacancies were in trade (90,000), business services (74,000), and healthcare (61,000). Together, these three sectors account for half of all unfilled vacancies.

The number of employee- and self-employed jobs increased by 127,000 to a record high of over 11.2 million (+1.1 percent).  The number of employee jobs rose by 102,000, an increase of 1.2 percent. The number of self-employed jobs rose by 26,000, an increase of 1.1 percent, reaching the highest level ever at 2.4 million self-employed jobs. Over 1 in 5 jobs in the Netherlands is self-employed.

The number of unemployed people fell by 32,000 in the first quarter to a record low of 338,000 people. That is 3.5 percent of the working population. The number of long-term unemployed people, who have been looking for work for a year or more, also decreased from 91,000 in the fourth quarter of 2021 to 83,000 in quarter one of 2022.