The official Dutch unemployment figure fell unexpectedly by 11,000 in October, the national statistics office CBS said on Thursday.

At the same time, the number of people claiming unemployment benefits (ww) rose by 8,000 to 408,000, the CBS said.

The fall in the jobless figure takes the Dutch unemployment rate down to 8.5%, a 0.2 percent cut on July’s high of 8.7%.

Calculated according the harmonised EU figure, the Dutch jobless total was 7% in October, unchanged on September.