There were fewer jobs at temporary employment agencies in the Netherlands in the fourth quarter of 2023 when compared to the third quarter, according to data from Statistics Netherlands.

The research showed 4,000 fewer jobs at temporary employment agencies in the fourth quarter than in the previous quarter, a decrease of 0.5%. The fall was lower than the quarterly decrease in Q3. In the third quarter of 2023, the number of jobs in the temporary employment sector saw a quarterly fall of 11,000.

Meanwhile, with a quarterly increase of 45,000 (0.4%), the total number of jobs amounted to 11.6 million (11,598 thousand) in Q4 2023. An average of 173,000 jobs will have been created over the entire year of 2023. These figures include all jobs, full-time and part-time.

Employees and self-employed people worked a total of more than 3.6 billion hours in the fourth quarter of 2023. Adjusted for seasonal influences, this is 0.3% less than the previous quarter.

Unemployment decreased in the fourth quarter of 2023. The data showed 360,000 people were unemployed during the period, 6,000 less than a quarter earlier. That is 3.5% of the working population in Q4. During the third quarter of 2023 this was 3.6%.

In the fourth quarter of 2023, the active labour force consisted of 9.8 million people aged 15 to 75.

The vacancy rate (number of vacancies per thousand employee jobs) decreased from 46 to 43 in the fourth quarter. The industry with the highest vacancy rate, as in the third quarter, remains construction (71).

Further data showed that the number of total job vacancies continues to decline, for six consecutive quarters now. At the end of December, there were 410,000 vacancies open, 5,000 fewer than at the end of the third quarter.

However, the data showed that there were more new vacancies created in the fourth quarter for the first time in 2023. There were 359,000 in Q4 which is 12,000 more than in the third quarter.