There are fewer vacancies again, the struggle for personnel has calmed down

On average, companies do not need to spend much effort to find new staff. There were 12,000 fewer job postings in the Netherlands in July, August and September compared to the previous three months, according to new figures from Statistics Netherlands (CBS). This is the fifth quarter in a row that the number of job vacancies and therefore tension in the labor market has decreased.

In the third quarter of this year, there were 114 job openings for every hundred unemployed people. In the previous period, 122 jobs were vacant for every hundred unemployed people. The number of vacancies fell the most in the retail, catering and industrial sectors. The number of job vacancies in public administration and agriculture increased only slightly.

Fixed term contracts

Statistics Netherlands had previously reported that unemployment in the Netherlands increased for the fifth consecutive month during the same period. Especially young people lost their jobs in July, August and September.

This may be related to the decreasing number of workers on flexible contracts. This was 29,000 fewer in the third quarter than in the previous quarter. The number of people on permanent contracts increased by 32,000 to 5.4 million.

The Dutch Statistics Office states that many fixed-term contracts were not renewed in the third quarter. Particularly, fixed-term employment contracts of young people between the ages of 15-25 were not extended. In the Netherlands, almost 76 percent of young people work on such fixed-term contracts. On average across the European Union, only 35 percent of young people do this.

recession

The Netherlands has been in recession since this summer. In the second quarter of this year, the economy contracted by 0.2 percent compared to the previous quarter. Later today, CBS will release numbers on economic growth (or contraction) in the third quarter.

Source: NOS