The number of jobless claims hit an all-time low in October. Never before has CBS paid just 150,000 current unemployment benefits in one month. The statistics office confirms this to NU.nl when requested.
“Since we’ve been tracking this, the number wasn’t that small, whereas now there are a lot more people,” says Peter Hein van Mulligen, chief economist at CBS, who has been tracking the number of jobless claims since 1998.
Unemployment was high in the 1970s and 1980s, and it was also easier for people to get benefits. During the 1990s, the rules in this area were significantly tightened.
“In 2008 we got close to today’s numbers, when the economy was very good,” says Van Mulligen. Compared to a year ago, the UWV issued about 50,000 fewer unemployment benefits last month.
