Unemployment rate, jobless benefit claims fell in May

The number of people unemployed in the Netherlands fell by 14,000 to 8.6% in May, the national statistics office CBS said on Thursday.

At the same time, the number of unemployment benefit claims has declined for the fourth month in a row, the state-run job centre UWV said. Some 436,000 people are currently claiming jobless benefits, down 8,000 on April.

The drop in unemployment largely benefited people aged 25 to 45, the CBS said. Over the past four months, unemployment has declined by an average 6,000 a month.

Calculated according to international definitions, the Dutch jobless rate is now 7%, compared with 7.2% in April. The unemployment rate in the eurozone as a whole was 11.7% in April.

However, while the number of jobless benefit claims fell 1.7%, there was a net increase in claims by the over 55s. The amount of ww benefits paid to older workers has gone up 25% over the past year, the CBS said.

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