Rate slows, but unemployment still rising

19 August 2004

AMSTERDAM — An average of 485,000 people were without jobs in the Netherlands in recent months, but the rate of increase in unemployment appears to be slowing, new figures indicated Thursday.

The Central Statistics Bureau (CBS) said 78,000 more people were unemployed in the period May to July 2004 than in the same period last year.

However, unemployment rose by 10,000 per month in the second half of 2003. This rate of increase fell to 3,000 a month in the last six months, the CBS said.

An average of 6.4 percent of the labour force was unemployed in the last three months of this year. In the same period last year this was 5.4 percent.

The CBS said unemployment is still higher than six months ago, but the average increase, calculated for the last six months, had dropped to 3,000 per month.

“This has put an end to the period of strong growth in unemployment. Unemployment has risen almost continually in the last three years. The rate at which it has grown fluctuated between a few thousand and 14,000 on average a month,” the statistics bureau said.

Unemployment is always higher on average in the May-July period because school-leavers enter the labour market and pupils and students start looking for holiday jobs.

“After correction for these seasonal effects the unemployed labour force comes to 476,000. This is 9,000down on the number for April-June 2004,” the CBS said.

Subject: Dutch news, unemployment in the Netherlands