The Dutch unemployment rates rose by 0.1 percentage point to 8.6% in January, the national statistics office CBS said on Thursday.

That means an extra 10,000 people are without work, taking the total to 678,000. Nevertheless, the jobless total has been fairly stable over the past three months, the CBS said.

At the same time, consumer confidence has recovered slightly and the index now stands at -10, the CBS said. Consumer confidence has improved steadily since last summer when the index hit a low of -37.