The Dutch unemployment rate maybe low at just 3.6% but by the end of last year, over a million people did not feature in the official jobless list but did want to work longer hours or have a permanent job, national statistics agency CBS said on Wednesday.

The labour under-utilisation rate reflects the proportion of people in the potential labour force who want a job but have not looked for one, are self-employed through necessity rather than choice, or are employed but working fewer hours than they would like.

Last year, the rate grew by almost 100,000 to 1.1 million, or 8.5% of the working population, the CBS said.

The highest rate is in Groningen, where 12.8% of the potential working population are not working as much as they would like. In Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the figure was over 11%, the CBS said. The lowest rate was in Zeeland.