Economy
In terms of percentage of population, the main economic activities are real estate and commercial services, retail and hotel/restaurants, medical care, transportation and communication, and government. In 2002, the unemployment rate was 13.1%.
A large, semi-covered, shopping area, Leidsenhage, exists near the border with Voorburg. Leidsenhage contains a large number of retailers, including large chains such as Albert Heijn, Vroom & Dreesmann, and C&A, as well as medium and smaller-sized shops and restaurants. Drawing large numbers of people, the area is a focal point of road and rail traffic in the area. Leidschendam also hosts the headquarters of Fugro, a multinational company providing geotechnical and surveying services.
Leidschendam hosted the main office of the country's secret service, the AIVD, which is an integral part of the Dutch Ministry of the Interior, before the office moved to Zoetermeer in 2007.
The building now hosts the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon to try those suspected of assassinating former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Voorburg hosted CBS "Centraal Bureau voor de Statistieken" Statistics Netherlands, the Dutch census office until mid 2008 when it moved to a new office in The Hague – Leidschenveen.
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Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“Cities need old buildings so badly it is probably impossible for vigorous streets and districts to grow without them.... for really new ideas of any kind—no matter how ultimately profitable or otherwise successful some of them might prove to be—there is no leeway for such chancy trial, error and experimentation in the high-overhead economy of new construction. Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.”
—Jane Jacobs (b. 1916)
“The basis of political economy is non-interference. The only safe rule is found in the self-adjusting meter of demand and supply. Do not legislate. Meddle, and you snap the sinews with your sumptuary laws.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get “a good job,” but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)