Women push unemployment above 500,000

19 April 2005

AMSTERDAM — Unemployment in the Netherlands continues to rise, as 518,000 were registered as out of work in the first quarter of 2005. This amounts to 7 percent of the working population.

The Central Bureau for Statistics — which refers to itself in English as Statistics Netherlands — said that when corrected to take account of seasonal factors the unemployment figure for the first quarter came to 498,000. This was 8,000 more than the previous three-month average.

The rise in joblessness has remained constant, with about 4,000 people joining the dole queues per month.

Unemployment in the first quarter of 2005 was 17,000 higher than a year earlier, with women accounting for the largest portion of the increase.

An average of 256,000 women were registered as jobless in the first three months of this year, an increase of 15,000 in the last year. The rise was mainly focused on women in the 25-44 age bracket.

The CBS said that a slackening of jobs growth in education and health — sectors where a lot of women have found work in recent years — helps to account for rising unemployment among this group.

An average unemployment rate of 500,000 is not unique from a historical prospective. An average of 530,000 people were unemployed in 1983 and 1984 and unemployment rose above 500,000 between 1994 and 1996.

“The highest point in the last 35 years was reached in 1994 when the annual average was 547,000. The job figure rose to 500,000 for a short period in early 2004,” the CBS said.

In the earlier periods the Dutch working population was very much smaller than is the case in 2005, so the unemployment percentage was much higher. As a result, 10 percent of the working population was registered as jobless in 1983 and 1984, while 8 percent were unemployment in 1994.

Subject: Dutch news