Flemish Brabant has unexpectedly surged from the lowest to the highest employment rate among Flemish provinces due to the discovery of “abnormal” activities by an official responsible for the labour force survey.
This information came to light on Wednesday in response to a question posed by N-VA MP Ine Tombeur to Flemish Minister Zuhal Demir.
A recent report by the Flemish Employment Support Centre (Steunpunt Werk) reveals that the federal statistics office, Statbel, identified “serious qualitative issues” with labour force survey data in Flemish Brabant for 2021-2024, consistently underestimating the number of employed individuals.
Statbel found that one of its investigators was regularly submitting “abnormal response patterns,” recording fewer employed individuals and training participants. Cooperation with this investigator has ceased. Since they handled about 25% of the labour force surveys in Flemish Brabant, “the impact was significant,” noted Zuhal Demir.
Excluding the skewed results, the provincial employment rate rose by 3.4 percentage points. “Consequently, Flemish Brabant moves from the province with the lowest employment rate to the highest,” summarised Demir.
Ine Tombeur emphasised that “accurate figures are essential when aiming for an employment rate of 80%,” as committed by the De Wever administration. “Basing decisions on inaccurate figures could lead to incorrect conclusions, misrepresenting the good work of the VDAB,” Flanders’ employment and training office, she added.
