Few young people in the Netherlands are sitting around doing nothing. Figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) show that 77 percent of young people aged 15 to 24 have a job.
This percentage is significantly higher than in other EU countries. By comparison, in Denmark, the number two country, 57 percent of young people work, while in Greece only 18 percent have a job.
In the Netherlands, 74 percent of young people combine working and studying. Although CBS does not have current European figures, it refers to similar figures for 2022 from Eurostat: this also shows that many more Dutch young people (aged 15 to 29) are working (73 percent) than in other EU countries. In non-EU countries Iceland, Switzerland and Norway, the percentage is also high.
Students
There are no immediate explanations for this striking difference, but according to researcher Frans Kaiser from the KiTeS institute at the University of Twente, the gap with other European countries is smaller when looking exclusively at students. Dutch students are more likely to live at home and typically have small part-time jobs of less than 20 hours per week. In other European countries, students are generally older, more likely to live independently, and often work longer hours. (HOP, OL)
Comments are closed.