The Dutch budget deficit fell to 2.5% in 2013, well below the EU’s 3% limit, the national statistics office CBS said on Monday.

The economy grew 0.9% in the fourth quarter of the year, compared with the previous quarter, the CBS said. Despite the growth in the fourth quarter, the economy contracted by 0.8% in 2013 as a whole.

Nevertheless, the national debt rose by €16bn to €443bn or 73.5% of gross national product. This is well above the EU limit of 60% and was largely due to the nationalisation of the SNS financial services group last February, the CBS said.

Higher taxes

Government income rose €7bn to €285bn, mainly due to higher taxes – particularly income and energy taxes. This also meant households had less disposable cash to spend – a drop of 1.1% compared with 2012, when spending power fell 2.2%.

Wages rose by an average of 1.2% but inflation was more than double that at 2.5%

The absenteeism rate also fell to 3.9% – this means 39 out of very 1,000 workers were off sick. This is the lowest figure since the CBS began calculating the absenteeism rate in 1996.

People are less likely to stay off work sick because of fears they could lose their jobs, the CBS said. Since 2002, employers have been fully responsible for getting sick employees back to work.