Around a quarter of people who were working on a flexible contract in 2012 had a permanent job three years later, but 49% were unemployed, the national statistics office CBS said on Monday.

The agency tracked people who had a temporary contract in 2012 to see if short-term jobs had helped people into a permanent position, as ministers said at the time.

The CBS classified flexible employment as working via a staffing agency, an internship or a contract of no more than two months.

Ten years ago, over one third of people on flexible contracts had found a permanent job within three years, but that has now fallen to 26%, the CBS said.

The research showed the low-skilled were least likely to find a permanent job via a short-term contract. Just 16% of them had a regular job, 14% were still working on short contracts or freelancing, and over 60% were unemployed.

The results are similar to research carried out by the University of Amsterdam and published earlier this year. It found two in five people with a flexible employment contract find a permanent job within five years.