An increase in the number of newly unemployed people, and temporary contracts are the culprit

This is striking, because the number of unemployed per se has not increased. New figures from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) show why. For example, young people in particular have left work, due to training or because a temporary contract has expired.

This temporary contract in particular appears to play a major role. In the third quarter of 2023, 22,000 unemployed young people indicated that their last job ended due to the expiration of a temporary contract. Two years earlier, in 2021, 14,000 unemployed young people gave this the main reason.

Temporary contracts

The expiration of a temporary contract is not just a reason for young people to leave work. It’s a generally common reason why a job ends up last.

In the third quarter of 2023, there were 69,000 unemployed, and this is the main reason. That’s more than in the same quarter of 2022, when there were 58,000 people, or in 2021, when 61,000 people cited it as a reason.

Among people ages 25 to 74, that number was the same as two years ago. At 29,000, the number of people unemployed due to bankruptcy, reorganization or labor dispute was about the same as it was a year ago.

The Netherlands leads the way

In the Netherlands, a temporary contract is much more common than in the rest of the EU. In 2022, 23% of all employees in the Netherlands had temporary contracts, compared to an average of 12% in the rest of the EU.

One reason for this high percentage in the Netherlands may be due to the high proportion of young people working, who are often still studying, and who often work on temporary contracts.

In the Netherlands, for example, nearly 76% of people aged 15 to 24 were working in 2022, compared to about 35% on average in the European Union. Among these young people, 64% also had a temporary contract, compared to about 50% on average for young people in the EU.