Unemployment among foreigners down slightly

Unemployment among people in the Netherlands with a non-western foreign background has fallen slightly. The decrease was completely accounted for by the youngest age groups. For people with a non-western foreign background aged over 25 years unemployment did not decrease at all. Unemployment among people with a non-western foreign background fell more slowly than that among the native Dutch population. 

Slower unemployment decrease for foreigners

Unemployment among people with a non-western foreign background was 15.5 percent in 2006. This is a slight decrease compared with 2005, when it was 16.4 percent. For the native Dutch population unemployment fell faster. In 2006 4.3 percent of the native population were unemployed.

Foreigners three and half times as likely to be unemployed

People with a non-western foreign background are three and a half times as likely to be unemployed than the native Dutch population. In recent years this difference was slightly smaller. People with a non-western foreign background have benefited less from the decrease in unemployment than the native Dutch population.

Fewer young foreigners unemployed

Unemployment among young people with a foreign background has decreased substantially. In 2006 20 thousand 15-24 year-olds with a  non-western foreign background were unemployed; this is 22 percent of this group. One year previously this was 26 percent. Among native Dutch people in the same age group unemployment fell from nearly 11 percent  to just over 9 percent. Unemployment was nearly two and a half times as high among young people with a non-western foreign background as among young people with a native Dutch background.

The difference in the development between the native Dutch and people with a non-western foreign background is in the age group 25-64 years. For people with a non-western foreign background, unemployment among 25-64 year-olds was around the same in 2006 as in 2005.

No substantial differences between non-western groups

Moroccans have had the highest rates of unemployment through the years. In 2006 17 percent of this group were unemployed. This means they were one and a half times as likely to be unemployed as people with a Surinamese background, the group with traditionally the lowest rates of unemployment. In 2006 unemployment among the Surinamese was 12 percent. The ratio between these two groups is back at its level of 2000.