Employment rate (20–64)
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.
Anyone working at least one hour a week counts as employed under the ILO definition CBS adopted in 2015 — a switch that reclassified roughly 1.1 million people with small jobs as employed overnight. In the country with the EU's highest part-time share, a headcount rate flatters labour input.
— CBS (its own explanation of the 2015 definition change) · CBS: overstap op internationale definitie
Measured in full-time equivalents instead of heads, Dutch labour participation is among the very lowest in Europe — an estimated 1.5 million FTE below the EU's top performers — while this headline rate is among the highest. Both are true; they measure different things.
— Stigter & Wilthagen in ESB (2022), cited by CPB; CBS confirms NL works the fewest full-time hours in the EU · ESB: Arbeidsdeelname kan en moet fors omhoog
Slack is invisible in the headline: over half a million part-time workers say they want more hours and are available (counted as simply 'employed'), and about 300,000 people meet one but not both ILO unemployment conditions — visible in neither the employment nor the unemployment rate.
— CBS (labour-market dashboard and annual labour supply reports) · CBS: onbenut arbeidspotentieel
Source & method
| Source | Eurostat lfsi_emp_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: lfsi_emp_a NL EMP_LFS cells actually start 2009 (the 2003 span seen earlier was the dataset's time dimension, not NL values). Pre-2009 backfill candidates: CBS 6383ART (1950–1996, closed) + OECD LFS — definitions differ, stitch needs break annotations. Hours-worked pairing panel: OECD.ELS.SAE,DSD_HW@DF_AVG_ANN_HRS_WKD,1.0 (NL 1970+, verified). |
Raw snapshot (JSON) · every observation keeps its retrieval timestamp and revision history in the public database.
Data table — Employment rate (20–64) (Netherlands)
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 83.4 |
| 2024 | 83.5 |
| 2023 | 83.5 |
| 2022 | 82.9 |
| 2021 | 81.7 |
| 2020 | 80.8 |
| 2019 | 81.0 |
| 2018 | 80.0 |
| 2017 | 78.9 |
| 2016 | 77.9 |
| 2015 | 77.2 |
| 2014 | 76.3 |
| 2013 | 76.7 |
| 2012 | 77.5 |
| 2011 | 77.2 |
| 2010 | 77.0 |
| 2009 | 77.6 |