36% of the unemployed in the second quarter 2023 are employed a year later
Labour market transitions between the second quarter of 2023 and the second quarter of 2024
Statbel publishes today the labour market transitions between the second quarter of 2023 and the second quarter of 2024 for the 15-74-year-olds. The data show that 36.2% of unemployed people a year ago made the transition to work, and 36.0% remained unemployed. 27.8% of the unemployed became inactive on the labour market. Furthermore, we observe that 9 out of 10 inactive persons remained inactive on the labour market between the second quarter of 2023 and that of 2024. Most of them were either retired or student, and so were not immediately available on the labour market. Finally, these results also show that people still stay in employment easily: 94.4% of people who were employed last year are still working. Only a small percentage became unemployed or inactive.
Unemployed
In previous quarters, it was noticeable that unemployed people found it more difficult to make the transition to work. Since the beginning of 2023, the trend seems to have reversed, with fewer and fewer unemployed people remaining unemployed, and the unemployed also returning to work slightly more often. 36.2% of the unemployed in the second quarter of 2023 are employed a year later. In absolute numbers, this means that of the 284,000 unemployed people in the second quarter of 2023, 102,000 are still unemployed one year later, 103,000 are working and 79,000 have become inactive (27.8%); this means that they are no longer seeking work and/or are not available within two weeks.
We see large regional differences: of the Flemish unemployed in the second quarter of 2023, 27.3% remain unemployed one year later. Figures are higher in the Brussels-Capital Region and in the Walloon Region: the percentage of people remaining unemployed over a 1-year period stands at 51.6% in the Brussels-Capital Region and at 34.9% in the Walloon Region.
Inactive people on the labour market
The vast majority of inactive people remain inactive one year later. Of the 3.44 million people who were inactive in the second quarter of 2023, 89.7% or 3.09 million are still inactive one year later, a figure slightly lower than in the previous quarter (92.0%). 7.2% or 248,000 persons have started to work and a small percentage of 3.1% or 106,000 people have made the transition to unemployment. Note that we always use the ILO definition of unemployment. This means that these people are now seeking work and are also available for a job, whereas this was not the case a year earlier. Overall, we see that more inactive people are trying to get into work this quarter compared to the first quarter of 2023 and 2024.
Employed
A very high percentage of people who were employed a year ago are still working today: 94.4% of people who were employed in the second quarter of 2023 remain employed in the second quarter of 2024. In addition, 1.5% of employed people (75,000 persons) have become unemployed a year later and 4.1% (about 201,000 persons) have become inactive. These figures remained fairly stable compared to the transitions between the previous quarters.
Background
To assess the situation of the labour market, it is not only important to know how many people are unemployed, inactive and employed, but also how many people change their status within a given period of time. How many of the unemployed in this quarter were already looking for work a year earlier? How many of them made the transition to work? What percentage of employed people were also working a year earlier? Questions that can be answered with the Labour Force Survey, as this is a survey in which respondents are interviewed several times.
In this press release, we discuss the evolution of the labour market status of people who were employed, unemployed and inactive a year ago (second quarter 2023) and compare it with their status in the current quarter (second quarter 2024). We focus here on the population aged 15 to 74. We also publish the comparison between the status in the previous quarter (first quarter 2024) and the status in the current quarter (second quarter 2024). These figures are not discussed in this text, but can be found under Figures on the website.
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.