More than 320,000 new jobs will be created in Belgium between 2016 and 2022

Some 322,000 net jobs will be created across all three Belgian regions between 2016 and 2022. This emerges from the regional economic perspectives from 2017 to 2022 published on Thursday by the Federal Planning Bureau on Thursday, and the three regional statistical institutes (IWEPS, SVR and IBSA). These findings are echoed in Le Soir on Friday. Growth in Wallonia and Brussels may, during this period, slightly catch up with that of Flanders.

Economic growth may largely be higher between 2016 and 2018 in the Flemish region (1.7%) than in Wallonia (1.3%) and in Brussels (1.1%). However, the discrepancies between the regions will be partially absorbed between 2019 and 2022, with GDP growth of 1.6% in Flanders, and 1.3% for the other two regions. These values are stated in the estimates.

Across the entire period from 2016 to 2022, net job creation could go up to 30,100 people per year in Flanders (+1.1%), comparing to 10,700 in Wallonia (up 0.8%) and 5,100 in Brussels (up 0.7%). The years 2016, 2017 and 2020, taken together, will be particularly prolific in this field.

Simultaneously, the rate of unemployment is likely to continuously decrease in the three regions. Indeed, the rate of unemployment is predicted to go, in Brussels, from 18.4% in 2016 to 14.5% in 2022. Over the same period it is anticipated to decrease from 15.1% to 11.9% in Wallonia and from 7.8% to 5.1% in Flanders.

Across the entire period from 2016 to 2022, the active population is forecast to increase by an average of 0.5% per year in Flanders and in Brussels, and by an average of 0.4% in Wallonia.

Moreover, over the same period, the Flemish region may record a real-terms increase in productivity gains per capita of 0.5% per year in the various market industries. In Wallonia and Brussels, this increase may be slightly less pronounced (0.4%) “however would, despite everything, constitute a recovery compared to the economic downturn seen during the period 2009 to 2015.”


The Brussels Times


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