UTRECHT - Employment
A high qualified workforce
In the past few years the working population in Utrecht continued to increase, owing to both demographic factors and also the fact that an increasing number of women are going out to work. It is expected that this increase will continue the next few years at a reduced rate. The activity rate for women in the province of Utrecht is higher than the national average, helped by the extensive services sector.
In general, the working population in Utrecht is highly qualified. The percentage of people who have had advanced vocational training is 33% and above the national average (23%). In both the city of Utrecht and in various other places in the province there are a large number of training centres, including many vocational training establishments at advanced, secondary and primary level.
Strong growth in job opportunities until 2001
Utrecht is rightly known as the office workers'capital. It is therefore not surprising that 84% of the employees of the province are working in the services sector. A further 15% are working in industry and only 0.6% in the agricultural sector, which represents the lowest share or jobs in this sector among all Dutch provinces.
In the services sector most people are employed in the head offices of large banks, insurance companies, the Jaarbeurs congress centre, informatics firms and the head offices of foreign firms.
The number of jobs has increased by 23% between 1996 and 2001, at a rate above the national average of 19%, throughout the whole services sector (26% in five years), and to a lesser degree in building and transport (approximately 19% in both cases). The growth has been particularly noticeable in the conurbation of Utrecht (Nieuwegein, IJsselstein and Houten) and less in the city of Utrecht itself. Almost 45% of all jobs are occupied by women.
In the last few years the growth in jobs has come to an end: since 2001 the number of jobs is sligtly diminishing, especially in the commercial services and informatics.
A typical feature of Utrecht - in addition to the large services sector - is the great concentration of higher ranking jobs. Approximately 20% of the total jobs of this type in the Netherlands are in the province of Utrecht.
Unemployment rates
The persistent favourable trend in the number of jobs until 2001 meant that for several years unemployment has been below the European and national averages. The number of unemployed persons in 2001 was 4 times lower than in 1995. Due to the economic stagnation however, the last few years the unemployment in Utrecht has risen to the average Dutch unemployment rate.
In particular, the number of women seeking employment has steadily grown in recent years. This is because of the increased number of women who want to go out to work.
However, the long-term unemployed are in the worst position. Approximately 45% of the total number of people registered as seeking employment are considered as long-term unemployed persons. This is one disadvantage of the high level of most jobs in Utrecht. People with in-adequate training have difficulty in fitting into the economic scene. To deal with this situation much attention has been paid to additional training and to promoting the creation of new jobs.
Unemployment among young people is still rather high (10% of unemployed persons are less than 25 years old).
Labour costs and incomes
As a result of the Dutch system of collective labour agreements (CAOs), there are, on the whole, only minor regional differences in wage levels. For each branch of economic activity, a collective labour agreement is concluded at national level and all employers in the sector concerned are bound by it.
In the 1980s there was a very moderate rise in nominal wage costs, particularly in the key sectors of industry and services. When inflation is taken into account, it becomes clear that the wage-restraint policy has resulted in only a slight increase in real wages in agriculture and fisheries and the construction industry, and even a drop in wages in the industrial and services sectors in those years. Between 1990 and 2000 the CAO-wages rose by 29% (25% in the public sector and 31% in the private sector) while the inflation amounted to 24%.
The share of wages in the total value-added for the province of Utrecht is slightly above the Dutch average. This is partly a reflection of the production structure in the province, which has a relatively small non-capital-intensive industrial sector, a relatively large knowledge-intensive services sector and an equally large transport and distribution sector.
The disposable household income in the province Utrecht is with 28 000 euro a year the highest in the Netherlands; the Dutch average amount to 25 900 euro. This difference is partly caused by the concentration of higher ranking jobs in Utrecht and the highly qualified workforce. The growth of the purchasing power between 1995 and 2000 was almost 5%.
About 64% of the employees in Utrecht works 35 hours a week or more; 27% works between 20 and 35 hours and 9 % between 12 and 20 hours. These figures are in line with the national pattern.
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