The number of job vacancies in the Netherlands fell by 12,000 in the third quarter of the year, but there were still 114 jobs on offer for every 100 people without work, national statistics agency CBS said on Tuesday.

It was the fifth quarter in a row where the number of vacancies had fallen, the CBS said. The drop in vacancies was particularly notable in the trade sector, including retail, in the hospitality industry and in manufacturing.

At the same time the official unemployment rate crept up again in the third quarter, as youngsters on temporary contracts lost their jobs. Some 3.6% of the workforce are now officially without a job, compared with 3.5% in the previous quarter.

In total, some 29,000 fewer people had a flexible employment contract in the July to September period, while the number of permanent jobs rose by 32,000 to 5.4 million.

Just over three-quarters of the under-25s in the Netherlands has a temporary contract, compared with 35% of their peers in Europe as a whole, the CBS said.