At the end of February, some 215,133 unemployed jobseekers were registered with the Flemish Employment and Vocational Training Service VDAB. This represents an increase of 2% on the figures from a year ago. Unemployment has been increasing slightly, but steadily in our region during the past year.
In more than half the cases (52%), the jobseekers are currently on unemployment benefit. This represents a total of 112,696 people. Some 42% of claimants (89,853 people) were not previously active on the labour market.
These are people receiving social security or sickness benefit, or people not claiming benefit that were not working previously but are now looking for work.
The unemployment rate in Flanders currently stands at 6.8%. The VDAB figures show differences between the provinces. Flemish Brabant has the lowest unemployment rate (5.3%), while Antwerp Province has the highest percentage of jobseekers (8.4%). In the other three provinces, the percentage of jobseekers varies between 6.1% and 6.7%.