Just one in nine people without a job received official unemployment benefit (WW) in the third quarter of this year, down from one in five in the same period two years ago, according to national statistics office CBS.

People can be registered as unemployed without having had a job, which means they are not entitled to WW benefits, and their number is increasing, the CBS said. At the same time, fewer people are losing their jobs and more people are working on short term contracts, and cannot claim the benefit if their contracts are not renewed.

The UWV benefits agency was paying just 145,000 WW benefit claims in the July to September period and only 44,000 of them were to people who were 100% unemployed.

People who lose their full time job and take up a part time one are entitled to benefits to help make up the difference.

Some 366,000 people are officially classed as unemployed in the Netherlands, taking the jobless total to 3.7%.