Expatica news

Unemployment stable but women still losing out

18 August 2005

AMSTERDAM — The declining number of vacancies in healthcare and education has pushed up joblessness among women while overall unemployment rate in the Netherlands remains stable.

The number of women out of work rose by 15.000 over the last twelve months
whereas the number of unemployed men was fairly constant.

In recent years many women found work in the healthcare and education sectors, Statistics Netherlands said in its latest report on the labour market. 

Currently there are about as many women as men unemployed in absolute
terms.

In the period May-July 2005 there were on average 499,000 people unemployed. The seasonally corrected figure was 493,000, the same as in April-June 2005. Seasonally corrected unemployment has been constant for about six months.

According to the latest figures by Statistics Netherlands 6.7 percent of the
labour force was unemployed in the past three months. A year earlier this was
6.5 percent.

The statistics agency said unemployment is always somewhat higher in the period May-July since students come onto the job market looking for regular and summer jobs.

The seasonally corrected figure for the unemployed labour force was 493,000. Seasonally corrected unemployment in 2005 has fluctuated between 490,000 and 498,000 people.

“Earlier this year a few thousand people were added to the unemployed figures, now a thousand are subtracted from them,” Statistics Netherlands said.

Unemployment among men was 5.9 percent in the period May-July 2005. A
year earlier this was 5.8 percent. Unemployment among women increased from 7.4 to 7.8 percent, the report said.

[Copyright Expatica News + ANP 2005]

Subject: Dutch news