Unemployment down for fourth straight month

Statistics Netherlands announced today that the number of unemployed people has decreased for the fourth month in a row. Unemployment decreased by 13 thousand in August and amounted to 8 percent of the population. The number of unemployment benefits decreased by 7 thousand in August. In the last four months unemployment decreased by an average of 14 thousand per month. This is mostly due to unemployed people finding work. In the last three months the working population (people who work 12 or more hours per week) increased with an average of 9 thousand people per month. In the last four months the steepest decline in unemployment was among people aged 25 to 45 years. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), unemployment in the Netherlands is amounts to 6.6 percent of the population, making unemployment in the Netherlands relatively low in international terms. In the Eurozone unemployment was 11.5 percent in July, and 10.2 percent in the European Union as a whole.