For eight months now, unemployment among youth has fallen below the lowest point before the economic crisis in 2008. At European level, the Netherlands is in the top three of countries with the lowest youth unemployment rate.
Only Germany and the Czech Republic have lower rates, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reports. Adjusted for seasonal effects, there were 104 thousand young unemployed between the ages of 15 and 24 in Q1 2018. This is 7.2 percent of the young labour force, versus 8.5 percent in Q1 2008.
Unemployment among this group is always higher compared to the older working population. In Q1, the unemployment rate among the labour force aged 25 to 74 years stood at 3.5 percent, still slightly higher than at the onset of the crisis.