Economic picture slightly deteriorates again

The CBS Business Cycle Tracer is a tool used to monitor the state of the Dutch economy. It provides an overall macroeconomic picture of the past month or quarter, based on all figures published by CBS. This picture will still vary between households, enterprises or regions, however.

Consumer confidence unchanged, producers more negative

Consumers remain equally negative in May. Producers were more negative in May than they were in April. Consumer and producer confidence were below the long-term average for the past twenty years.

Household consumption, exports and investment up

In March 2025, the total volume of goods exported (adjusted for the number of working days) was up by 3.2 percent year on year. Export volumes were higher for machinery, chemical products and food, beverages and tobacco, in particular.

Household spending was 0.9 percent higher in March 2025 than it was in March 2024, adjusted for price changes and the shopping-day pattern. Households spent more on both services and goods.

In March 2025, the volume of investment in tangible fixed assets was up by 2.2 percent year on year. This was mainly due to more investment in machinery (including defence equipment) and buildings.

Manufacturing output over 1 percent higher in March

In March 2025, the calendar-adjusted output of the Dutch manufacturing sector was 1.3 percent higher than it was in March 2024. This was the third consecutive month in which there has been an increase in output, after a year and a half of declines. After adjustment for seasonal and calendar effects, manufacturing output fell by 0.6 percent in March relative to February.

More bankruptcies in April

Adjusted for the number of court session days, there were 61 more bankruptcies in April than in March. That was an increase of 26 percent.

House prices up by 10.2 percent in April

In April, the average price of an owner-occupied dwelling (excluding newbuild homes) was 10.2 percent higher than one year previously. Prices in April rose by 0.7 percent relative to March.

Fewer number of hours worked and vacancies, people unemployed virtually unchanged

Unemployment stood at 387 thousand in April 2025. On average, the number of unemployed people has hardly increased over the past three months.

In Q1 2025, employees and self-employed persons worked a total of over 3.7 billion hours. Adjusted for seasonal effects, this was 0.5 percent less than the previous quarter.

The number of vacancies decreased by nearly 7 thousand to 395 thousand in the first quarter of 2025.

In Q4 2024, the turnover of temporary employment and job placement agencies was 1.2 percent higher than in Q4 2023.

Economic growth of 0.1 percent in Q1 2025

According to the first estimate by Statistics Netherlands (CBS), gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 0.1 percent in Q1 2025, relative to the previous quarter. GDP growth in the first quarter was mainly due to a smaller reduction in inventories. Public expenditure also made a positive contribution.