Living and working in the Netherlands

In 2022 and 2023, the government developed a large labour market reform package aimed at, among other things, making employee status more common again, reducing flexibilisation and bogus employment, and dealing with the tight labour market in the short and long run. The package also addresses digitalisation, robotisation and climate change. Various challenges and the fall of the government in July 2023 delayed approval of the package in parliament, although almost no topics were declared controversial by the House of Representatives. In November 2023, elections were won by parties on the political centre and right: the Party for Freedom (PVV), which won the largest number of seats in parliament, and two relatively new parties, the Farmer–Citizen Movement (BBB) and the New Social Contract (NSC). The new House of Representatives was installed in December.

Social dialogue is well embedded in the society and economy of the Netherlands. Negotiations took place in a difficult atmosphere, characterised by regular strikes and warnings of strikes to put pressure on employers. In 2022, the number of strikes was higher than in 2021, but the number of workers involved and working days lost were lower. Most strikes occurred in the transport and logistics sector, followed by manufacturing. Data on strikes in 2023 are expected to come available in May 2024. In 2023, relatively more negotiations ended in a final offer from employers on which the trade union members involved were asked to vote. One in 5 collective labour agreements concluded in this way (in 2019, the figure was 1 out of 10).

The General Employers’ Association (AWVN) felt that negotiations were strongly influenced by factors such as high absenteeism rates, social unrest, high inflation and unclear economic developments. The duration of the agreements, therefore, is relatively short (14 to 17 months). This, however, also means that issues such as workforce ageing, falling labour productivity and the tight labour market were less often addressed. Wage increases were one of the main topics, because of the high inflation rate and the wish to maintain purchasing power. This, combined with the extreme labour shortages, led to a historically high average wage increase of 7.1% across 439 new collective labour agreements covering 3.7 million employees. In another new development, in one-third of the agreements, the wage increases differed by category of employee, and low-waged employees benefited the most.

Regarding working time, there was one unexpected change. In 2022, the House of Representatives approved the Work Where You Want bill (Wet werken waar je wilt). This amends the Flexible Working Act (Wet flexibel werken), which aims to support employees’ work–life balance. The amendment would have meant that an employer could reject a request to work remotely only if there were compelling business or service interests. Against the expectations of many, the senate rejected the change.