New method for Statistics Netherlands' unemployment figures

From 22 July onwards, Statistics Netherlands will publish unemployment figures for single months. Until now, the unemployment figure was a three-month average. In the press release to be published on 22 July, the figure for June will be published.

Statistics Netherlands has developed a method by which a monthly figure for unemployment can be published. These figures now constitute the official unemployment rate for the Netherlands.

The new method makes it possible to produce more up-to-date figures. From now on, Statistics Netherlands will publish monthly the figure for the previous month. Until now, the figure referred to the average unemployment in the three preceding months.

The change in method has little effect on the level of unemployment. On the basis of the new method, seasonally corrected unemployment for April 2010 is 436 thousand people. The previously published three-month average for the period March-May 2010 was 431 thousand. For earlier periods, too, the differences are small. According to the new method, unemployment was 4.8 percent in 2009. This is 0.1 of a percentage point lower than the figure published previously.

In Statistics Netherlands’ databank StatLine, the new monthly figures for the unemployed labour force are available from January 2003. The former three-month average figures are available in the StatLine archive. Calculation of these three-month averages will not be continued.