There will be a small rise in the number of new jobs in 2015 and unemployment will fall slightly, the benefit agency and job centre organisation UWV forecast on Tuesday.

It will be the first time in three years that new jobs are created, the UWV says. Most of them will be in the private sector, with the number of public sector jobs continuing to fall.

Some sectors are already seeing a growth in jobs, such as temp agencies, which always the first to register job growth, the wholesale trade and transport.

The new jobs will not be spread equally across the country, the UWV says. It expects Amsterdam, south-east Brabant and Flevoland to lead the way for the rest of this year and all 2015.

The organisation is also expecting the number of people claiming unemployment benefit (ww) to start going down in 2015.

In 2008, the year the economic crisis began, 170,000 people were on unemployment benefit. This rose to 438,000 at the end of 2013.

The UWV expects numbers to rise by a further 22,000 this year, but to begin falling back by 3,000 in 2015.