The unemployment rate in the Brussels-Capital Region rose to 15.2% in August, as an additional 5,352 people registered as job seekers.
Brussels employment agency Actiris noted in its latest monthly report that a near 6% rise in the number of job seekers was artificially inflated by an administrative change.
At the end of last month, there were 95,574 job seekers registered with Actiris in the Brussels Region, up 5.9% compared to August 2023.
Actiris noted that the large increase was partly due to a change in how job seekers register for social integration income or similar supports. Job seekers in this category no longer have to re-register every three months, but now remain automatically registered until the end of the income granting period.
The employment agency said that this change "mechanically inflates" the figures for August and that if this specific category is excluded the increase in the number of job seekers in August was only 2.9%.
On a monthly basis, the number of job seekers in Brussels increased by 2.3% between July and August.
At the end of last month, the unemployment rate in Brussels stood at 15.2%, an increase of 0.8 percentage points compared to the same month last year. The unemployment rate tracks the share of people who are in the labour force but are unemployed, and does not include "inactive" people such as students or retirees.
Among currently registered job seekers, 45.3% have been unemployed for more than two years, while 16.2% have been out of work for between one and two years, and 38.4% have been unemployed for less than a year.
In terms of age, just 10.7% of job seekers are under 25, while 64.1% are aged between 25 and 49, and 25.2% are 50 or older.
Comparing last month with August 2023, the biggest unemployment increases have been among young people, with the number of job seekers under 25 up by 12.3%.
For those aged between 25 and 49 the increase is 7.4%, while the figure remains stable for those aged 50 and over (+0.1%).
