The Dutch economic picture was ‘more negative’ in October 2025 compared to the previous month, the latest edition of the CBS Business Cycle Tracer has found.
The tracer, which compiles macroeconomic data from recent Statistics Netherlands (CBS) announcements, provides a summary of the overall state of the national economy, with the October edition finding that 11 of the 13 indicators tracked were below their long term trend.
Both consumer and producer confidence was up slightly in October, it noted, with producer confidence above the long-term average for the past twenty years. Consumer confidence was below the lonh-term average, but still showed a modest increase compared to September.
Household consumption
The tracer noted that household consumption rose by 1.1% in the Netherlands in August 2025 compared with the same month a year earlier, with spending increasing on goods and services.
The total volume of exports was 0.4% higher in August, year-on-year, due to higher export volumes of crude oil, natural gas, basic metals, and transport equipment. The volume of investment in fixed assets fell by 3.8% for the month, however, due to lower investment in buildings and other road transport.
Elsewhere, manufacturing output remained unchanged in August 2025 compared to the corresponding month a year earlier.
Labour market
In the third quarter of 2025, Dutch employees and self-employed individuals worked more than 3.7 billion hours, collectively, which was 0.2% higher than in the second quarter.
The number of unemployed individuals rose to 409,000 in September, equivalent to 4.0% of the labour force. This is the highest level of unemployment in four years, with unemployment increasing by an average of 8,000 per month over the past three months.
The number of job vacancies declined to 387,000 in the third quarter, a fall of around 2,000, marking nearly three consecutive years of quarterly decreases.
‘According to the first estimate conducted by Statistics Netherlands, gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 0.4 percent in Q3 2025 relative to Q2 2025,’ the report noted. ‘This growth was mainly attributable to exports and public consumption.’ Read more here.
