Almost 10% of people in the Netherlands aged 25 to 45 say they have a medical condition which makes it hard to find work, the national statistics office CBS said on Monday.

Of the total 400,000, some 200,000 people are not trying to find a job or have withdrawn totally from the labour market, the CBS said.

People with a disability are slightly less likely to have a permanent contract than workers without medical problems and some 14% work as freelancers. One in five would like to work longer hours than they currently do.

The CBS said that in total 1.7 million people aged 15 to 75 were unable to work in 2015 for medical reasons but did not say how many of them were retired or still in full-time education.

Some 810,000 people in the Netherlands are currently claiming some form of incapacity benefit.