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Measuring green jobs in the Netherlands

Keywords: green jobs, netherlands, computation techniques

The economic consequences of environmental measures and environmental concerns are of great interest to policymakers. Environmental measures will bring about new economic activities that may create new jobs and stimulate economic growth. Policymakers therefore need information on companies and institutions that produce goods and services that measure, prevent, limit, minimise or correct environmental damage, resource depletion and resource deterioration. All these companies and institutions belong to the so-called environmental goods and services sector (EGSS). EGSS statistics are intended to measure the number of ‘green jobs’ in the Netherlands. EGSS also contributes to total production and the Dutch gross domestic product. According to the definition for the EGSS used in the handbook on the EGSS (Eurostat, 2009) the sector consists of a heterogeneous set of producers of technologies, goods and services. This paper describes different estimating techniques for measuring the economic importance of the EGSS. Statistics Netherlands only makes use of already existing survey data and register data in order to compile figures for the EGSS.