Unemployment on the rise, especially among young people

Unemployment in the Netherlands rose to 3.8 percent of the working population in August. More people looked for but couldn’t find work, and more people lost their jobs, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reported. The number of young people active in the labor market, in particular, decreased.

Last month, 378,000 people in the Netherlands were unemployed. This means they had no paid work, were actively looking for work, and were available to start working immediately. Over the past three months, the number of unemployed increased by an average of 18,000 per month.

In addition to the unemployed, 3.7 million people aged 15 to 75 were not working for various reasons. They are not counted as part of the working population. “This mainly concerns people who are retired or unable to world due to illness or incapacity for work,” CBS said. On average, this group decreased by 9 thousand per month over the past three months.

In August, 9.5 million people had work. This number decreased by an average of 3,000 per month over the past three months. The decrease occurred almost exclusively among 15 to 25-year-olds. This age group’s net labor participation rate fell from 75.1 percent in May to 74.9 percent in August.

The increase in unemployment did not result in an increase in active unemployment benefits. In August, benefits agency UWV paid out 152,000 of these benefits. Unemployment benefits fell in almost all sectors except in education, where they increased by 14.7 percent. “This is a common development in the summer months and has to do with the expiry of temporary employment contracts at the end of the school year,” CBS said.