Consumer confidence has dipped for the seventh month in a row, with Dutch households increasingly pessimistic about their economic prospects, statistics agency CBS said on Tuesday.

The monthly survey, which measures positive against negative expectations, produced a net figure of minus 37, down from minus 34 in March. A figure of zero means positive and negative sentiments are equally balanced.

Consumers were gloomier about the economic climate, with the barometer sinking from minus 57 to minus 61 in April, and less likely to make major purchases.

On balance, more people said their own financial situation was getting worse, with a net score of  minus 20 for the last 12 months, although there was more optimism for the coming year, when the confidence score was minus 8.

Consumer confidence had been recovering in the two years since the end of the coronavirus pandemic, having hit an all-time low of minus 59 in the autumn of 2022, but remained in negative territory.

It reached a high point of minus 21 last September, but has been in decline ever since. The last time the CBS’s survey returned a positive figure was July 2019.