Thousands of Dutch lose job due to crown crisis | Financial

Statistics Netherlands claims that it has not been since 2014 that the number of people employed in the Netherlands suddenly plummeted to 17,000 in a month. At the same time, the number of new unemployment benefits last month increased by more than 42 percent to 38,000. At the end of March, the UWV registered a total of 250,000 current unemployment benefits. That was 10,000 more than in February.

CBS economist Peter Hein van Mulligen typically prefers not to draw big conclusions based on figures of just one month. But this time, he says, there is a very clear development. Especially people under the age of 25 resorted to unemployment insurance last month. The largest increases were seen in the restaurant, temporary employment and cultural sectors with respect to new claims for benefits.

Still, the official unemployment rate has held steady at 2.9 percent of the workforce, the same low level as in February. This is because not all people who leave paid work are immediately considered unemployed. Many people do not immediately look for a new job or are not immediately available for a new job. Statisticians do not count them as part of the workforce.

Van Mulligen acknowledges that the statistical definition here covers actual unemployment. You can imagine that many people who are now losing their jobs are forced to wait for new jobs until the government’s restrictive crown measures have been curtailed.

In total, 9 million people were working last month, 4 million people were out of paid work for various reasons. Of these, Statistics Netherlands counted 273,000 people as unemployed.