He therefore agrees with the words of macroeconomist Edin Mujagic, who told BNR Business today that there is “nothing light” to note about the contraction, as he noted in many initial reactions. “You have to imagine this contraction continuing for a year, so your economy will be three percent smaller at the end of the year,” Blom says. “These are unprecedented numbers.”
“If you keep this up for a year, the economy will be three percent smaller by the end of the year”
Furthermore, according to Blom, one must also realize that the quarters preceding the contraction have been corrected downwards. He therefore believes that the picture of how the economy is performing has “really changed”.
Causes
One of the culprits for the economic downturn is labor market tightness, says Rabobank senior economist Nic Vrieselaar. He says the economy has been overheated for a long time, “so as a business owner you get a lot of customers that you can’t serve easily,” he explains. “Then it’s very difficult to grow up.”
According to Vrieselaar, for example, growth requires more staff, and if they can’t be found, growth is out of the question. Furthermore, the full-on performance of the Dutch economy also makes further growth more difficult. ‘It is much easier to accelerate on a motorway from 80 to 120 kilometers per hour than from 120 to 160 kilometers per hour. And that’s how I see the Dutch economy: we’re already doing very strong.’
Export
In addition to the fact that companies have to be dishonest about personnel, the export data is also quite disappointing. Vrieselaar doesn’t dare to say exactly what caused this. It could be due to the decrease in demand from abroad. ‘It could be that overseas consumers have started consuming proportionately more services,’ she concludes. ‘Think, for example, of the restaurant sector, which has been banned for a long time, so the demand for goods such as laptops is declining. This is clearly reflected in the export.’