The Dutch economy grew by 0.6% in the final quarter of 2022, slightly up on the 0.2% growth recorded in the third quarter, national statistics agency CBS said on Tuesday.

There had been fears that the Netherlands would enter a slight recession in the final months of this year, but this did not happen, CBS chief economist Peter Hein van Mulligen said. ‘Higher spending by consumers contributed most to the growth but investments by industry and trade also played a role.’

The Dutch growth figure is higher than that of France and Belgium (0.1%) and Germany, where the economy contracted by 0.2 percentage point. In the EU as a whole, there was no growth, Van Mulligen said.

The final quarter estimates take growth over 2022 as a whole to 4.5%, compared with 4.9% in 2021. ‘It is the first time in 20 years that the economy has grown so strongly for two years in a row,’ Van Mulligen said.

The CBS also said that the number of job vacancies outstripped the number of people looking for work for the fifth quarter in a row. There were 123 jobs on offer for every 100 unemployed people in the final quarter of the year.