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Netherlands – Temporary billings down as GDP contracts

May 15, 2012

There are still no good news for the temporary staffing industry in the Netherlands as temporary billings continued to drop in April, reports the Federation of Private Employment Agencies (ABU) today.

This comes after the EU's statistics office Eurostat today said that Dutch economic output contracted for a third consecutive quarter in Q1 2012 by -1.3% when compared to last year.

In April, the total amount of hours worked by temporary staff decreased by -2% while turnover remained flat when compared to the same time last year. However, compared to a month ago there has been a slight improvement as sales in March were down by -2% from a year ago.

But the downward trend continued for the medical sector in April as the amount of hours again decreased sharply by -11% while turnover dropped by -8%.

In the industrial sector the decline was less dominant but hours fell by -3% and turnover decreased by -2%.

The amount of worked hours in the technical sector also decreased by -2% and turnover shrank again by -1% compared to a year ago.

Things were looking at least a bit better in the administrative sector where hours increased by +1% as turnover was up by +3% when compared to the same period last year.

The Netherlands is the fourth largest staffing market in Europe, but has recently been troubled by the economic downturn.

Forecasts for the staffing sector predict a decline for the market and, so far, 2012 has shown a broad drop in temporary billings.