It has been clear for a while that the corona crisis is hitting the Dutch economy at an unprecedented level. In addition to the record shrinkage by Statistics Netherlands announced this morning, it also published figures on corona and the labor market.
This shows that in the Netherlands from April to June of this year, a total of 322,000 jobs were lost compared to the previous quarter. According to Statistics Netherlands, this is also a record decrease and amounts to a decrease of 3 percent.
And the real picture of the job market is probably even more negative. Because some of the people who did have a job recently did not or hardly work. They continued to be paid thanks to government support through the NOW scheme. Statistics Netherlands estimates that the actual number of hours worked decreased by 6.1 percent in the second quarter compared to the previous months.
Fall in vacancies
Since the low point in 2014, the number of jobs has been steadily increasing and unemployment has fallen. But that came to an abrupt end due to the corona crisis. Jobseekers also had less choice in the second quarter. The number of unfilled vacancies decreased by 26,000 compared to the previous quarter.
After measures against the spread of the virus came into effect, the number of unemployed people rose from 277,000 to 349,000 despite all government support. There has been no such rapid increase in the number of unemployed since 2003.
Flex workers hit
The figures for the second quarter also show how vulnerable the position of flex workers is in times of crisis. Between April and June, the number of employees with a flexible contract fell by more than one hundred thousand. In total, there were still 1.7 million flex workers at the end of June. That is 272,000 fewer than a year earlier.
“The figures from CBS confirm what the FNV has been indicating for almost six months: flexible workers are the first victims of the economic downturn that has started since mid-March, despite the support measures that are also intended for them,” says Tuur Elzinga, vice-chairman of the FNV trade union. “The flexible labor market must be overhauled.”
Waiters, shop assistants and drivers
In particular, there are far fewer temporary workers than last year, more than 70,000 in total. This also applies to some 50,000 on-call and stand-in workers. In addition, it is striking that many of the affected flex workers had their job for less than six months.
Almost a fifth of all flex workers who lost their job worked as a waiter or bar employee. Tens of thousands of store employees, drivers and cleaners also found themselves at home in recent months.
Employees with a permanent job increased
The number of employees with a permanent job has not decreased compared to last year, but has even increased. The same applies to the number of self-employed persons. But because the group of flex workers who lost their job is so large, the total number of workers is lower than last year.
The only industries that saw slight job growth during the corona crisis were government, information and communications.
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