Less substantial decrease in employment

There were 82 thousand fewer jobs of employees in the second quarter of 2010 than in the second quarter of 2009; a decline of 1.0 percent. This decrease is less substantial than those in the previous three quarters when the number of jobs fell repeatedly by around 2 percent.

The number of jobs of employees in the Netherlands (full-time plus part-time jobs) totalled over 7.8 million in the second quarter of 2010, which comes to 5.9 million jobs converted to full-time equivalents. The decline relative to the second quarter of 2009 was 75 thousand.

Employment is clearly subject to seasonal variation. After adjusting for these effects, the number of jobs in the second quarter was up by 0.2 percent on the first quarter of 2010. Relative to a quarter previously, employment grew for the first time after five quarters of contraction.

Growth rate jobs and economic growth