Economic picture remains negative

The CBS Business Cycle Tracer is a tool used to monitor the state of the Dutch economy. It provides an overall macroeconomic picture of the past month or quarter, based on all the figures published by CBS. This picture will still vary between households, enterprises or regions, however.

Consumers more negative, producers less negative

Dutch consumers were slightly more negative in June 2024 than in the previous month, but producers were slightly less negative. However, confidence remained below the long-term average for the past two decades.

Household consumption, exports and investment up

Households spent 0.6 percent more in April 2024 year on year, adjusted for price changes and shopping-day pattern. Spending was higher on both goods and services.

In April 2024, the total volume of goods exported (adjusted for the number of working days) was up by 2.3 percent year on year. That was the first increase in exports in almost a year. Export volumes of chemical products, food, beverages and tobacco, and machinery were higher, in particular.

In April 2024, the investment volume for tangible fixed assets was up by 7.4 percent year on year. This was mainly due to higher investment in buildings, machinery (including defence equipment), infrastructure, other road transport (trucks, trailers, etc.) and aircraft. April 2024 included three more working days than April 2023.

Manufacturing output down by 3.5 percent in April

In April 2024, the calendar-adjusted output of Dutch manufacturing was 3.5 percent lower than it was in April 2023. Year-on-year output also contracted in the preceding nine months. After adjusting for seasonal and calendar effects, manufacturing output rose by 0.4 percent in April relative to March.

Slightly fewer bankruptcies in May

Adjusted for the number of court session days, there were 18 fewer bankruptcies in May than in April. That was a decrease of 5 percent. However, there has been an upward trend in the number of bankruptcies for over two years.

House prices up by almost 9 percent in May

In May 2024, existing owner-occupied dwellings were 8.6 percent more expensive, on average, relative to one year previously. Prices were 1.1 percent higher in May than they were in April.

More hours worked, more vacancies and lower unemployment

In Q1 2023, the number of hours worked rose by 0.3 percent on the previous quarter after adjustment for seasonal effects. Employees and self-employed people worked a total of over 3.7 billion hours in Q1 2024.

Over the past three months, the number of unemployed persons has declined by an average of 4 thousand per month. In May 2024, there were 367 thousand unemployed people, equivalent to 3.6 percent of the labour force. In April it was 3.7 percent. The unemployment rate has been hovering around 3.6 since summer 2023.

After six quarters of decline, the number of vacancies increased slightly in Q1 2024. At the end of Q1, there were 411 thousand vacancies, almost 1 thousand more than at the end of December.

In Q1 2024, the turnover of temporary employment and job placement agencies was 2.9 percent higher year-on-year.

Economic contraction of 0.5 percent in Q1 2024

According to the second estimate conducted by Statistics Netherlands (CBS), gross domestic product (GDP) decreased by 0.5 percent in Q1 2024 relative to Q4 2023. The contraction in Q1 was mainly due to goods exports. The decline in goods exports is related to the contraction in the manufacturing sector.