Employment marginally down

In the first quarter of this year, 26 thousand jobs of employees (a decline by 0.3 percent) were lost relative to the first quarter of 2011. Many jobs were lost in the sector public administration, but the number of jobs also fell in the sectors education, construction, manufacturing industry and financial and business services. On the other hand, employment improved in the sectors trade, transport, hotels and restaurants and in health care and welfare.

Employment is obviously subject to seasonal variation. After correction for seasonal effects, the number of jobs was 31 thousand down from the fourth quarter of 2011.

Altogether (full-time plus part-time jobs), there were 7.8 million employee jobs in the Netherlands. Converted to full-time equivalents, there were more than 5.8 million jobs in the first quarter, 0.5 percent down from the first quarter of 2011.

Wages of employees per working year were 0.6 percent up on one year previously. The wage increase is less substantial than the increase in collectively negotiated wages (1.3 percent) and also below the level of inflation (2.5 percent in the first quarter of 2012).

Growth rate jobs and economic growth

More figures can be found in dossier Business cycle.