In the second quarter of 2025, there were 320 thousand people briefly unemployed, while three years earlier there were still 249 thousand. The number of unemployed people looking for work for less than a month is hardly increasing. There are mainly more unemployed who are looking for work for one to twelve months.
Dutch people who previously did not offer themselves in the labor market are now more often looking for work. In the second quarter of 2025, 123 thousand people were looking for a job who were not actively engaged in the labor market three months prior. In August, this had risen to 133 thousand.
At the end of 2024, there were still 117 thousand. Fewer people lost their jobs during that period, from 120 thousand in the fourth quarter of 2024 to 111 thousand in the second quarter of 2025.
Unemployment was at its lowest point in the past twenty years in the second quarter of 2022, at 3.3 percent. Since then, unemployment has increased at various times, mainly due to more new job seekers offering themselves.
The increasing unemployment due to job loss occurred only in 2009, when the effects of the credit crisis were noticeable in the labor market, and briefly in 2020 when the corona crisis began.
Unemployment in the Netherlands is among the lowest in the European Union (EU-27). In 2024, an average of 5.9 percent of the labor force aged 15 to 75 in the EU was unemployed. In the Netherlands, that was 3.7 percent at that time.
The Czech Republic and Poland had the lowest unemployment in the EU, with less than 3 percent of the labor force. Spain had the highest unemployment in the EU at 11.4 percent, followed by Greece at 10.1 percent.
Labor participation is the highest in the EU in the Netherlands. In 2024, 73.2 percent of 15 to 75-year-olds worked in the Netherlands, compared to an average of 61.7 percent in the EU.
Great! Unfortunately, it is not free to keep Openrijk running. A cup of coffee would therefore be greatly appreciated :) Thank you!
