Q: If the news says unemployment is stuck at 3.8%, why should I care?
"Because that number hides what’s really going on. Thousands of people lose their jobs and thousands find new ones every month. It looks calm, but it’s actually busy under the surface. For small business owners, it means two things: customers might spend less if they feel insecure, and the people you want to hire might be harder to find in your sector. The trick is not to stare at the big number, but to watch the small waves around you."
Paolo Maria Pavan
There’s a danger in numbers. They appear precise, they look scientific, they comfort us with the illusion of clarity. Yet, as every entrepreneur knows, figures can be both a compass and a mask.
July 2025 gives us one such paradox:
- 388,000 people unemployed.
- 3.8% of the working population, steady for four months.
- 188,000 people with ongoing unemployment benefits.
- 5,000 new jobs added each month on average.
- 3.2 million people not counted at all, because they are “outside the labor force.”
At first glance, this stability sounds reassuring. No panic, no shockwaves, no dramatic collapse. But I ask you: when did “no change” become the story?
The Illusion of Stability
The Netherlands prides itself on resilience. Compared to many European peers, our unemployment rate is enviably low. Entrepreneurs, policy-makers, and journalists might be tempted to celebrate. But let’s pause.
A flat line on a graph can mean balance, or stagnation. When you read that unemployment “remained virtually unchanged,” what it really means is that behind the curtain, 236,000 people lost jobs or entered the labor market in July, and 234,000 people found jobs or stopped looking. A perfect counterweight. Life stories cancel each other out in the aggregate.
For the individual entrepreneur, however, this equilibrium feels very different. If you run a bakery, a fintech startup, or a consultancy, it is not “the average” that matters. It is whether you can find the skilled worker you need, or whether your loyal employee hands in her notice because another company offers more.
The Flows Behind the Numbers
Statistics Netherlands gives us the big figures. But let’s look at the flows that explain why the headline is flat:
- Inflow to unemployment: people losing jobs, or entering the labor market without finding work immediately.
- Outflow from unemployment: people finding jobs, or giving up the search and leaving the labor market.
In July, inflow and outflow were almost identical. That balance masks the turbulence beneath: education saw a 14.3% rise in unemployment benefits, healthcare 2.8%, banking 2.6%. These are not marginal sectors; they are pillars.
So, while the rate stays at 3.8%, certain parts of the economy are quietly destabilizing. If you are a small entrepreneur, these micro-shocks ripple toward you: the teacher who loses her job becomes a customer who tightens spending, the healthcare worker on benefits delays fixing the roof, the bank clerk suddenly rethinks his mortgage.
What This Means for Entrepreneurs
If you are running a micro or small company in the Netherlands, here’s the truth:
- Labor availability is deceptive. You may think a 3.8% unemployment rate means a broad pool of talent. In reality, much of that pool is in transition, skilled but mismatched, searching but not aligned with your needs.
- Sectoral shifts matter more than the national average. Education shedding jobs may not affect you today, but tomorrow it might mean fewer trained staff entering the private market or more competition for part-time work.
- Hidden unemployment lives outside the statistics. The 3.2 million people “not in the labor force” include the sick, the retired, and the discouraged. But some are able, willing, and one good incentive away from re-entering the game. For the small entrepreneur, this is often where the most loyal hires are found, people overlooked by the big corporates.
Reading Beyond the Graphs
Let me be provocative: entrepreneurs should treat national unemployment figures the way sailors treat the weather forecast. Useful, but not sufficient. You don’t set sail by reading the national average temperature. You look at the tide, the clouds above your head, the way your own boat responds to wind.
For the Dutch entrepreneur, that means:
- Look beyond the 3.8% to your own sector’s hiring and firing data.
- Watch the UWV benefit flows in your industry. They tell you where turbulence is starting.
- Pay attention to the behavioral economy: how people on the margin, those moving in and out of work, adjust their consumption, saving, and risk-taking. That is where micro-businesses feel the first tremors.
The Soul of the Matter
Why do I write this? Because behind every decimal point lies a tension: between resilience and fragility, between the promise of work and the risk of exclusion. Entrepreneurs are the translators of these tensions into reality.
You don’t just look at the numbers. You hire the person, you feel the market, you bear the uncertainty.
So, when you hear “unchanged unemployment at 3.8%”, don’t mistake it for calm waters. It is a lake with strong undercurrents. And those who sail small boats, the micro and small entrepreneurs of the Netherlands, must know how to read them better than anyone else.
DATA SOURCE:
https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2025/34/werkloosheid-ook-in-juli-3-8-procent
Co-Creator of Xtroverso | Head of Global GRC @ ZENTRIQ™
Paolo Maria Pavan builds systems that balance rules with freedom, clarity with transformation. In his third life, he writes and speaks openly about markets, governance, and risk, not as a trader chasing price, but as a reader of patterns, behaviors, and distortions. A serial entrepreneur shaped by failure and reinvention, he sees governance as a living force for trust and progress, and refuses to avoid the hard conversations that make it real.
