Unemployment in Belgium continues to fall. At the end of November 273,000 people in Belgium were registered with one of the three regional employment services as being entitled to full-time unemployment benefit. This is the lowest level since the 1970s and labour market analysts speak of an historic low.
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Unemployment in Belgium at its lowest level since the 1970’s
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The figures show a very significant decline compared to previous years. In 2019, 2020 and 2021 over 300,000 were unemployed at the end of each year. The labour market analyst Jan Denys of the HR service provider Randstad says that we would have to look back to the 1970s to find lower figures.
At the end of 2023 285,475 people were unemployed. Jan Denys says that the fall in unemployment can has come about due to efforts to integrate unemployed people back into the labour market by offering better support. Furthermore, many new jobs have been created. "More jobs than ever before have been created under the Michel and De Croo governments".
Jan Denys observes that Belgium is focusing more and more on services and less on industry. "Consequently less economic growth is needed to create new jobs." According to the analyst, many retirees are also being replaced by younger and better-qualified jobseekers.
Region variations
The picture is not the same throughout the country though and while full employment is no longer a utopian dream in Flanders, the unemployment figures in the Brussels-Capital Region and Wallonia are slightly higher. Flanders finished the year with 3.83% of the workforce unemployed (-5.5% on a year ago). In Brussels 14.13% of the workforce is unemployed (-3.9%). The same is true of 9.76% of the workforce in Wallonia.