While the unemployment rate in Brussels exceeded the 20% mark at the start of the 2010s, it has fallen back to around 15% in recent years. With, as everywhere, great local disparities. Normal phenomenon, according to Bernard Clerfayt (Défi), for whom the question of unemployment “goes beyond the framework of the municipalities”. “There is also no equality between municipalities in terms of income, level of diploma…”, comments the Brussels Minister for Employment. Among the tools of the Region to activate its applicants: bonuses (like Activa, which reduces wage costs when hiring young people and seniors) and support for training. Because, it is one of the paradoxes of Brussels, points out Clerfayt: a low level of diploma of the population, but jobs requiring high qualifications.
In the capital, Molenbeek has the highest unemployment rate in February 2023: 21.8%. “But the situation has improved,” insists Alderman Amet Gjanaj (PS). In ten years, the annual average has fallen by 6 points. According to the alderman, this unemployment rate should be taken into consideration in a broader context of precariousness and low level of training. “There is an inaccessibility of certain jobs, for a population which has a high number of under-qualified people”, explains the agent, aware of the stereotypes sometimes attached to the municipality at the mills. “The negative image is there. There are therefore two behaviors: to be desperate, or to have the spring to bounce back. The municipality is in this logic of wanting to bounce back.” In recent years, according to him, the employment assistance services have been strengthened, via the local economy counter, the ALE, a work of networking… Few are the empty commercial cells . This is the “paradox” of Molenbeek, indicates Gjanaj who points to the vitality of small businesses. It should be noted that St-Josse, the poorest municipality in Belgium, posted similar unemployment rates, sometimes higher, than Molenbeek during the decade.
Conversely, the south-west of the capital stands out from the Brussels data by posting inactivity rates that do not exceed ten. It is in Woluwe-Saint-Pierre that the unemployment rate is lowest (8.3% in February 2023), followed by its neighbors Auderghem (9.4%) and Woluwe-Saint-Lambert (9.9% ). Unemployment here too, underlines the Sanpetrusian alderman, to be considered in a broad dimension. “We have a socio-economically more favored basic public”, comments Alexandre Pirson (LE).