Unemployment rate fell to 3.6% in May

Thus, the number of paid employment reached 9.8 million in May. After stagnating in the first few months of the year, employment has again increased by an average of 10,000 per month over the past three months.

In total, nearly 3.6 million people aged 15 to 74 are not finding paid work for various reasons. In addition to the 367 unemployed, nearly 3.2 million people have not recently looked for work and/or are unable to find work immediately. These people are not counted as part of the labor force. Many of them are retirees and people who cannot work due to illness or incapacity. Over the past three months, the number of people outside the labor force fell by 5,000 on average.

UWV: Unemployment benefits (WW) slightly increased in May

At the end of May 2024, the UWV recorded 170,800 people receiving unemployment benefits. This is almost 500 more than at the end of April (+0.3%). In May, 23,900 new unemployment benefits were granted and 23,400 benefits were terminated. Since October 2023, the number of people receiving unemployment benefits has increased slightly almost every month.

UWV: Differences between departments

The industries with the largest increases in unemployment benefits in May were government (+4.1%), food, beverages and tobacco (+3.8%) and cleaning. There were also some industries that saw a decrease in unemployment benefits, such as agriculture (-6.9%), construction (-6.9%) and temporary employment (-4.4%). These industries usually offer more job opportunities in the spring.

Youth unemployment rate falls

In May, the unemployment rate for young people fell the most, from 8.7% to 8.4% for those aged 15 to 24. The unemployment rate for this age group is significantly higher than for those aged 25 and over. The youth unemployment rate has also been more volatile over the past 12 months. Youth unemployment mainly involves educated young people seeking part-time work.
Among those aged 25 to 44, the unemployment rate fell to 3.0% from 3.1%. Among those aged 45 and older, the unemployment rate remained stable at 2.1%.

Employment outflow slightly exceeds inflow

Unemployment trends are the result of underlying flows between employed people, unemployed people, and people out of the labor force. The chart below shows this trend visually. The chart below shows how these different flows have changed over the past few months.

The unemployment rate can increase or decrease due to four different changes in people’s circumstances. Two of these changes can cause the unemployment rate to fall: unemployed people find jobs, or unemployed people stop looking for work and drop out of the labor force.

There are two other changes that can cause the unemployment rate to rise: the unemployed looking for work, and people who were not previously in the labor market starting to look for work. If these groups cannot find work immediately, they will become part of the unemployed labor force.

In the first few months of 2024, the increase in unemployment was mainly due to more people outside the labor force seeking employment but failing to find work immediately. Since then, job inflows have fallen again as more people have found jobs, including unemployed people and job seekers outside the labor force. This has led to a net decrease of 12,000 unemployed people in the labor force over the past three months, an average of 4,000 per month.

CBS publishes labor force data monthly in accordance with the guidelines of the International Labor Organization (ILO). Corresponding indicators (i.e. employed and unemployed labor force) are used around the world to describe the cyclical development of the labor market. In this respect, the monthly data are of vital importance. In addition, the UWV publishes its own monthly data on unemployment benefits. The data published by the UWV do not correspond one-to-one with the labor force indicators.