Economic outlook more negative in July

The Business Cycle Tracer is a tool to monitor the state and the cycle of the Dutch economy. It presents a coherent macroeconomic picture of the past month or quarter, based on all the figures published by CBS. However, it does not apply equally to all households, enterprises or regions.

Consumer confidence unchanged, producer confidence deteriorated

Consumers were equally pessimistic in July as in the previous month. Consumer confidence is low and positioned well below the long-term average over the past two decades. Producer confidence deteriorated in July, falling below its long-term average as well.

Household consumption, exports and investments up

Households spent 1.4 percent more in May 2023 year on year, adjusted for price changes and the shopping-day pattern. Again, they spent more on services and less on goods.

In May, the total volume (working-day adjusted) of goods exports was up by 0.8 percent year on year. The increase was mainly seen in exports of transport equipment, machinery and appliances.

The volume of investments in tangible fixed assets was up by 6.9 percent year on year. This is mainly due to higher investments in buildings, passenger cars and aircraft.

Manufacturing output over 9 percent down in May

In May 2023, the average daily output of the Dutch manufacturing industry was 9.2 percent lower than in May 2022. Output also contracted on an annual basis in the preceding months of this year. After adjustments for seasonal and working-day effects, manufacturing output rose by 1.2 percent between April and May.

More bankruptcies in June

For the third month in a row, the number of bankruptcies has increased. There were 48 more bankruptcies in June than in the previous month after adjustment for the number of court session days.

House prices 5.5 percent lower in June

In June, owner-occupied dwellings (excluding new constructions) were on average 5.5 percent cheaper than in May 2022. The decrease is virtually the same as in the previous month. Relative to May, the price index of existing owner-occupied dwellings increased by 0.2 percent in June.

More hours worked, equal numbers of vacancies and unemployed

In Q1 2023, the number of hours worked, adjusted for seasonal effects, was 0.7 percent higher than in the previous quarter. Total hours worked by employees and self-employed people over Q1 2023 amounted to over 3.6 billion.

In June 2023, 353 thousand people aged 15 to 74 years were unemployed. This is 3.5 percent of the labour force, just as in May. Statistics Netherlands (CBS) measures the trend in the number of unemployed as an average change over the past three months. From April through June, unemployment declined slightly by an average of 1 thousand per month.

At the end of March, there were 437 thousand unfilled vacancies, just as many as at the end of December 2022. This stabilisation follows two quarters of decline.

In Q1 2023, turnover at temporary employment and job placement agencies rose by 3.2 percent relative to the previous quarter. 

Economic contraction 0.3 percent in Q1 2023

According to the second quarterly estimate, in Q1 2023 gross domestic product (GDP) decreased by 0.3 percent relative to the previous quarter. In Q4 2022, GDP rose by 0.9 percent. The contraction in the first quarter of 2023 is mainly due to increased withdrawals from storage facilities.