Unemployment & long-term unemployment
⌇ 2015: CBS moved to ILO definition; Eurostat consistent
Peer lines share one grey on purpose: hover for countries. The compared series can differ slightly from the Dutch definition above.
Countries are ordered by value, highest first — rank 1 means the highest number, not “the best”. A year is ranked only when all 8 countries report it; missing years stay gaps. The EU average is not a country and is not ranked.
Known criticisms of this statistic
Every statistic embodies method choices, and the substantive critiques of those choices are part of understanding the number. These are documented positions — each linked to who makes it. Listing a criticism is not endorsing it; we take no side.
The ILO definition counts anyone with one hour of paid work per week as employed; the Dutch national definition used until 2015 required twelve hours. People with marginal jobs therefore count as employed, not unemployed. When CBS switched in 2015 it recalculated the figures back to 2003, so the published series carries no break — but the level is lower than the old national definition would show.
— CBS (its own announcement of the definition switch), 2015 · CBS: CBS stapt over op internationale definitie van werkloosheid
CBS itself publishes a broader measure — unused labour potential ('onbenut arbeidspotentieel') — that adds people available but not recently searching, people searching but not immediately available, and part-timers who want more hours. It runs around three times the official unemployment count.
— CBS (its own labour-force dashboard) · CBS: Dashboard beroepsbevolking — werkloos
Source & method
| Source | Eurostat une_ltu_a · Eurostat une_rt_a |
|---|---|
| Licence | CC BY 4.0 (Eurostat) |
| Trend method | OLS over last 8 annual observations, 5% significance (MBW convention) |
| Revisions | None recorded since 2026-07-07. Every retrieval is stored append-only; when the source restates history, the old and new values become comparable here. |
| Pipeline notes | Ingested 7 Jul 2026: une_rt_a NL cells actually start 2009 (not 1983/2003 as earlier claimed — those were dimension spans). Pre-2009 candidates: CBS 37948 (registered unemployment monthly 1952–2010, closed) — registered ≠ ILO survey definition, so chart as separate labelled segments, never one line. |
Raw snapshot (JSON) · every observation keeps its retrieval timestamp and revision history in the public database.
Data table — Unemployment rate (Netherlands)
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 3.9 |
| 2024 | 3.7 |
| 2023 | 3.6 |
| 2022 | 3.5 |
| 2021 | 4.2 |
| 2020 | 4.9 |
| 2019 | 4.4 |
| 2018 | 4.9 |
| 2017 | 5.9 |
| 2016 | 7.0 |
| 2015 | 7.9 |
| 2014 | 8.4 |
| 2013 | 8.2 |
| 2012 | 6.8 |
| 2011 | 6.0 |
| 2010 | 6.1 |
| 2009 | 5.4 |