More inactive on the labour market people finding or seeking work
Labour market transitions between the third quarter 2024 and the third quarter 2025
Statbel publishes today the labour market transitions between the third quarter 2024 and the third quarter 2025 for the 15-74-year-olds. They show that 30.2% of the unemployed from a year ago made the transition to work, and 35.6% remained unemployed. 34.2% of the unemployed became inactive on the labour market. Furthermore, we see that 86.7% of inactive on the labour market persons remained inactive on the labour market between the third quarter 2024 and the third quarter 2025. Most of them were either retired or student, and so were not immediately available on the labour market. However, between the last few quarters, we do see an increase in the percentage of economically inactive people who, a year later, are looking for work or have started working and are no longer economically inactive. Finally, the results also show that people still stay in employment easily: 93.7% of people who were employed last year are still working.
Unemployed
The percentage of unemployed people who remained unemployed has fallen when we compare their position with a year ago: from 46.0% in the first quarter to 40.3% in the second quarter and further to 35.6% in the third quarter 2025. However, these figures do not reflect a transition to employment. The percentage of unemployed people who have become inactive on the labour market increased at the same rate: from 24.3% in the first quarter to 28.8% in the second quarter and then 34.2% in the third quarter 2025.
Furthermore, 30.2% of the unemployed in the third quarter 2024 are employed a year later. In absolute numbers, this means that of the 320,000 unemployed people in the third quarter 2024, 114,000 are still unemployed one year later, 97,000 are working and 109,000 have become inactive on the labour market; this means that they are no longer seeking work and/or are not available within two weeks.
However, we must bear in mind that the transitions, particularly those to and from unemployment, are based on small numbers, which makes a sound interpretation difficult, certainly with regard to short-term trends. These short-term developments should therefore be interpreted with caution. Historical developments, on the other hand, are characterised above all by fluctuations within a context of relative stability.
We see large regional differences: of the Flemish unemployed in the third quarter 2024, 30.0% are still unemployed one year later. The figures are higher in the other two regions: in the Brussels-Capital Region, the percentage of people who remain unemployed over a period of one year is 52.4%, and in the Walloon Region 33.1% - a clear decrease compared to the previous quarter (43.7%). However, we must bear in mind that the transitions, particularly those to and from unemployment, are based on small numbers, which makes reliable interpretation difficult.
Inactive people on the labour market
The vast majority of inactive people are still not active on the labour market one year later. Of the 3.4 million people who were inactive in the third quarter 2024, 86.7% or 2.9 million are still inactive one year later. 9.0% or 301,000 persons have started to work and a smaller percentage of 4.4% or 146,000 people have made the transition to unemployment. Note that we always use the ILO definition of unemployment. This means that a person is unemployed if they are looking for work and are also available for a job.
When we compare the transitions between the third quarter of 2023 and the third quarter of 2024 with the transitions between the third quarter of 2024 and the third quarter of 2025, we see that more inactive people have started working or are actively looking for work.
Employed
A very high percentage of people who were employed a year ago are still working today: 93.7% of people who were employed in the third quarter 2024 are still employed in the third quarter 2025. In addition, 1.8% of employed people (91,000 persons) have become unemployed a year later and 4.6% (about 230,000 persons) have become inactive. These figures remained fairly stable compared to the transitions between the previous quarters.
Methodological information
The figures presented here are the results of the Labour Force Survey (LFS), a survey harmonised at European level. The definitions regarding employment and unemployment that are used are those of the International Labour Office (ILO) to allow international comparison. We distinguish three ILO statuses on the labour market: employed, unemployed and inactive. The definitions applied are available here.
Please note that temporarily unemployed persons are temporarily absent from work and are counted as employed.
The Labour Force Survey is a continuous survey, which means that the sample is spread evenly over the 52 weeks of the year. The selected respondents answer a questionnaire mainly related to their activity in the course of a given reference week. The respondents participate four times: they participate for 2 consecutive quarters, then don’t for 2 quarters, and then participate again for 2 quarters. This way, we can observe what the labour market status of a given respondent is in a given quarter, and a quarter and/or a year later: e.g. is someone who is unemployed still unemployed in the next quarter and/or year?
So, if one speaks of a particular status in a particular quarter, it is by definition the status in the reference week. If one indicates to work in the reference week of quarter Q and in the reference week of quarter Q+1, they are counted twice as employed. There are, of course, a number of cases that were unemployed in the meantime, for example, but this is beyond the scope of our data.
The quarterly transitions are the sums of weighted observations of respondents who participated in the successive quarters (e.g. 2019Q4-2020Q1, 2020Q1-2020Q2).
The quarter-specific annual transitions are the sums of weighted observations of respondents participating in the same quarter of two consecutive years (e.g. 2019Q1-2020Q1).
The annual transitions are the means of four quarter-specific annual transitions for two successive years (e.g. 2019-2020).
Respondents who did not participate in one of two waves (= interviews) cannot be taken into account in this analysis. Respondents in the longitudinal sample are in both quarters at least 15 years old and at most 74 years old.
The longitudinal sample is calibrated to the estimated distributions of ILO labour market status per age, gender, region, level of education and nationality in the start and end quarters.
The published figures are based on the Labour Force Survey. They are no exact figures but approximations based on the extrapolation of a random sample from the Belgian population. This must be taken into account when interpreting the results. When the unweighted number of people is lower than 30, data should be interpreted with caution.
Definitions
The level of education is measured using a detailed questionnaire, and the people are then divided into three groups.
Low-skilled people are people who list lower secondary education as their highest level of education. Medium-skilled people are people who obtained a diploma of higher secondary education but not of higher education. High-skilled people obtained a diploma of higher education.
What is the difference between permanent job and temporary job
People who have an employment contract of unlimited duration are considered to have a permanent job.
People who don’t have an employment contract of unlimited duration are considered to have a temporary job.