Unemployment further up in July

In July, 3.7 million people aged 15 to 74 years did not have paid work for a variety of reasons. Aside from the unemployed, 3.3 million people were not looking, and/or not immediately available for work; they are not counted towards the labour force. This mainly concerns people who are retired or unable to work due to illness or disability. Their number has dropped by an average 6 thousand per month over the past three months, to the lowest level since June 2009.

Unemployment up in July

In order to enable comparison of cyclical developments in the labour market across countries, the unemployment indicator of the International Labour Organization (ILO) is used as a measure. According to this indicator, the unemployed are those who are not in paid work but have been looking recently and are immediately available. This figure refers to the population aged 15 to 74 years. In April 2022, unemployment came out at 3.2 percent, the lowest rate in the series with monthly figures as of 2003. Unemployment subsequently increased to 3.6 percent in July, i.e. back to the level of the beginning of this year.

UWV: Number of benefits further down in July

At the end of July 2022, UWV was providing 157 thousand WW benefits. This is 4 thousand fewer than in the previous month (-2.5 percent). Relative to July 2021, the number of WW benefits was down by 68 thousand (-30.1 percent). In July 2022, there were 18 thousand new WW benefits; 22 thousand were terminated.

UWV: Seasonal rise in benefits for education workers

Across virtually all sectors, the number of current WW benefits declined in July. However, it rose instead in the education sector: by 9.8 percent. This is a usual development for the summer months and is related to the expiration of temporary employment contracts at the end of the school year. The largest decrease in WW benefits occurred in the sectors accommodation and food services (-9.0 percent) and construction (-8.4 percent).

More job losses, more people outside the labour force seeking work

The rise in unemployment (by 37 thousand) over the past three months is the result of underlying flows between the active, unemployed and inactive labour force. This is visualised in the diagram below.

The diagram shows that unemployment may increase not only because people in work lose their jobs, but also because people enter the labour force who were not previously part of it. As soon as they start seeking work and are available, they also become part of the unemployed.
The inflow from the inactive labour force is usually the most important reason for unemployment growth. This was also the case in the previous months, but in June and July, the inflow from the employed labour force increased, while the reverse flow from unemployed to employed labour force became slightly smaller. On balance, this resulted in the smallest outflow from unemployment to employment of this year (20 thousand), see the chart below.

Every month, CBS publishes figures on the Dutch labour force in accordance with international guidelines. The corresponding indicators, i.e. the employed and unemployed labour force, are used around the world to describe cyclical developments on the labour market. Monthly figures are essential in this respect. In addition, UWV issues its own monthly figures on unemployment benefits. Figures released by UWV are not comparable one-to-one with the labour force indicators.