Did the number of unemployed people in Brussels really fall by 40% in July?

Brussels

Place

Brussels

Belgian region where registered jobseekers increased despite a sharp fall in benefit recipients.

Why it matters

Belgian region where registered jobseekers increased despite a sharp fall in benefit recipients.

About

The City of Brussels is the largest municipality and historical centre of the Brussels-Capital Region, as well as the capital of the French Community of Belgium, the Flemish Region, and Belgium. The City of Brussels is also the administrative centre of the European Union, as it hosts a number of principal EU institutions in its European Quarter.

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Actiris said the federal time limit on unemployment benefits was moving people between administrative categories. Among all registered jobseekers, 33,075 were attached to a municipal CPAS

The underlying flows reinforce that warning. Actiris registered 10,711 entries and 6,764 exits during July, producing a monthly increase of 3,947 jobseekers. The number unemployed for less than one year rose by 7.2%, while the group unemployed for one to two years increased by 7.6%. Registrations among people under 25 climbed by 17%. These figures do not show how many people who lost benefits entered employment, because an administrative change in benefit status is not itself a labour-market outcome.

The immediate cause is Belgium’s 2025 programme law, which replaced potentially unlimited unemployment insurance with a maximum entitlement normally lasting 24 months and shortened insertion allowances for young people to one year. The National Employment Office, ONEM, says the transition is proceeding in waves. A fourth wave reached people in the former second benefit period from 1 July 2026, while further expiries for people with shorter employment histories are scheduled between July 2026 and June 2027. ONEM cautions that definitive July exit data based on payments will only be available around three months later.

Federal Employment Minister David Clarinval

Actiris and Brussels social institutions offer a different reading of the first results. Their figures show that fewer insured claimants can coexist with more registered jobseekers. Brupartners, the capital’s social and economic consultative council, previously estimated that about 40,775 Brussels residents could lose benefits during the transition—22.1% of projected Belgian exclusions even though the region contains roughly 10.6% of the national population. It argued that large cities face a disproportionate burden and need additional support.

That burden lands most visibly on the nineteen municipal CPAS offices, which assess household resources and provide integration income and social assistance. Brupartners cited a Brussels CPAS federation scenario in which a 60% transfer among affected residents could add 24,465 clients and cost local authorities €157.5 million, only partly offset by federal compensation. Those remain projections, not a verified final bill.

The social backdrop is already difficult. Vivalis, Brussels’ health and social administration, reported that 47,304 people received integration income in the region at the start of 2025—more than in Flanders despite Brussels having a far smaller population. It warned in 2026 that recipients could soon outnumber insured unemployed people for the first time in the capital.

The next test is therefore not whether the benefit-recipient count keeps falling; the reform makes further declines likely. It is whether employment rises, how many households qualify for CPAS support, how many disappear from known income systems, and whether municipalities can absorb the workload. ONEM’s delayed payment-based figures and Actiris’s monthly registrations will together show whether July marked successful activation or chiefly a transfer between two pillars of Belgium’s safety net.