Economic outlook more negative

The Business Cycle Tracer is a tool to monitor the state and the cycle of the Dutch economy. It presents a coherent macroeconomic picture of the past month or quarter, based on all the figures published by CBS. However, it does not apply equally to all households, enterprises or regions.

Consumers less pessimistic, producer confidence virtually unchanged

Consumers are again less gloomy in February than they were in January. However, consumer confidence is still exceptionally low. It is well below the long-term average over the past two decades. Producer confidence has hardly changed in February and is above its long-term average.

Household consumption and exports up, investments down

Households spent 9.9 percent more in December 2022 year on year, adjusted for price changes and differences in the shopping-day pattern. They spent almost 20 percent more on services, but 0.6 percent less on goods. A lockdown was in effect in the second half of December 2021.

In December, the total volume of goods exports (adjusted for working days) was up by 4.7 percent year on year. The increase over December was mainly seen in exports of petroleum products, machinery and appliances. However, the export of chemical products was lower than in December 2021.

The volume of investments in tangible fixed assets was down by 1.9 percent year on year. This is mainly because of fewer investments in passenger cars and infrastructure. However, there were more investments in buildings and aircraft.

Manufacturing output slightly up in December

In December 2022, the average daily output of the Dutch manufacturing industry was 0.5 percent higher than in December 2021. Manufacturing output grew considerably less rapidly in the last months of 2022 than before.

Fewer bankruptcies in January

The number of corporate bankruptcies, adjusted for court session days, has decreased. There were 35 fewer bankruptcies in January 2023 than in the previous month. This is a decrease of 13 percent. The number of bankruptcies remained low compared to the period before the outbreak of coronavirus.

House price increase levelled off further

In January, owner-occupied dwellings (excluding new constructions) were on average 1.1 percent more expensive than in the same month last year, down from 2.7 percent in December. It was the lowest year-on-year price increase in almost nine years.

More hours worked, higher unemployment and fewer job vacancies

In Q4 2022, the number of hours worked, adjusted for seasonal effects, was 1.2 percent higher than in Q3 2022. Total hours worked by employees and self-employed people over Q4 2022 amounted to over 3.6 billion.

At the end of December, there were 442 thousand unfilled vacancies, 7 thousand fewer than at the end of the third quarter. It is the second consecutive drop after the number of vacancies increased for eight quarters in a row.

In January, 360 thousand people aged 15 to 74 years were unemployed. As a result, the unemployment rate rose from 3.5 percent in December to 3.6 percent in January. From November through January, unemployment still declined slightly by an average of 2 thousand per month.

In Q3 2022, turnover at temporary employment and job placement agencies rose by 2.5 percent relative to the previous quarter.

Economic growth of 0.6 percent in Q4 2022

According to the first quarterly estimate conducted by Statistics Netherlands (CBS) on the basis of currently available data, gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 0.6 percent in Q4 2022 relative to the previous quarter. In Q3, GDP fell by 0.2 percent. Growth in Q4 was broad-based, with trade balance and household consumption making the largest contributions.