There’s a peculiar sound in the Dutch economy lately, not a crash, not a siren, but something softer: the rustle of industrial prices sliding just a little, again. In June 2025, industrial sales prices fell by 0.2% compared to June 2024, says CBS. That sounds like a footnote. But for those who listen with trained ears, it’s the kind of whisper that precedes a storm or signals a recalibration of the system.

To the untrained eye, a 0.2% drop might seem irrelevant, just background noise in a volatile world. But patterns don’t speak in headlines. They speak in curves, in lagging indicators, in the slowness of oil, and the chill of petrochemicals. Let’s read the story not told by charts, but hidden inside them.

From Euphoria to Equilibrium: A 3-Year Flashback

To understand June 2025, you have to rewind to June 2022. Back then, industrial prices were exploding: +24.9% year-over-year. The months that followed? A parade of double-digit inflation, fueled by post-COVID supply bottlenecks, energy panic, and commodity speculation.

That frenzy didn’t last.

By mid-2023, the tide turned: June 2023 posted a -3.7% decline. Since then, we’ve been in a slow unwinding of industrial price pressure, sometimes gently up, mostly gently down. This isn’t a cliff. It’s erosion.

And erosion is always more dangerous than it looks.

Oil: Still the Puppeteer

You cannot discuss industrial pricing without mentioning oil. Brent crude was down over 21% this June compared to the same time last year. That’s not just a market stat, it’s a gravitational force.

Industrial sectors—especially petroleum products (-15.8%) and chemicals (-2.6%), mirror oil prices like a coastline mirrors the moon. When oil falls, the entire value chain feels it: from synthetic plastics to delivery costs, from asphalt to aspirin.

Even sectors you wouldn’t immediately connect to oil, like automotive (+2.9%) or metal products (+1.9%), are swimming in a tide largely set by global energy sentiment.

In other words: you may think your business has nothing to do with oil. But oil has everything to do with your business.

Stability Is Not Always a Good Sign

Now, let’s pause on that seemingly calm -0.2% figure for June. It comes after -0.6% in May and -0.9% in April. Look again: the declines are slowing.

That might sound like good news, until you realize that stagnation in prices can also signal a deeper freeze. The worst part of economic fatigue is not the crash. It’s the plateau.

And yes, June prices were 0.4% higher than in May, suggesting a tiny month-to-month rebound. But let’s not confuse movement with momentum. An uptick after a downward slope is not recovery, it’s often hesitation.

Sector Breakdown: Where the Muscle Is, and Isn’t

Here’s what the data tells us when we zoom in by sector:

• +3.6% Foods: resilience, perhaps due to continued demand and supply chain normalization.
• +2.9% Cars: supply catching up to post-COVID orders, or pricing power before the EV bubble?
• +1.9% Metal products: stable, but fragile, with global uncertainty about raw material sourcing.
• +1.3% Plastics/rubber and machines: still dancing with the oil market.
• -0.6% Electrical engineering: a warning flag in the tech-adjacent zone.
• -2.6% Chemistry: demand hasn’t yet returned to pre-war, pre-crisis levels.
• -15.8% Petroleum: the elephant in the room finally shrinking.

These are not just numbers. These are pulses. And some are growing weaker.

What This Means for Entrepreneurs

If you’re reading this as a founder, a director, or a risk officer, here’s what I suggest you reflect on:

1. A fragile equilibrium is not peace. When prices stop falling sharply, it doesn't mean they’re about to rise again. It means the system is searching for footing—and your strategy should too.
2. Cost stability is not profit certainty. Even if your input prices stabilize, client expectations and end-user purchasing power might not.
3. Oil remains the invisible hand. Even in Europe’s most sophisticated manufacturing ecosystems, we’re still oil-dependent in pricing logic.
4. Diversification is no longer optional. If your value chain leans heavily on chemistry, energy, or metals—plan for volatility, not recovery.

Final Thought: What the Mirror Shows

Dutch industrial sales prices are not collapsing. But they’re not rising either. They are reflecting something deeper than inflation or recession: they’re showing fatigue, saturation, and uncertainty.

Markets are like people. After a crisis, we don’t bounce back. We limp, we pause, we renegotiate reality.

What we see in the June numbers is not a recovery. It’s the economy taking a breath before its next sentence. And that sentence will depend on decisions made now—by entrepreneurs, policymakers, and those brave enough to read the whispers, not just the headlines.

Keep your ears to the ground, and your eyes on the trendlines.

Clarity is not just a virtue. It’s a form of power.