Government plans to create 150,000 jobs a year, with focus on ethnic minorities

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In early April 1999, the Dutch Minister for Economic Affairs released details of an ambitious plan aimed at creating some 1.5 million jobs over 10 years. Meanwhile, the Minister responsible for integration policy for large cities is seeking specifically to reduce unemployment amongst people from ethnic minorities. Unemployment amongst another target group, older people, has already been reduced.

In early April 1999, Annemarie Jorritsma, the Dutch Minister for Economic Affairs, announced plans to achieve a growth of 1.5 million jobs over the next 10 years. In addition to the normal annual increase in employment of 50,000, she aims to find each year jobs for 100,000 of the Netherlands' 2 million economically "inactive" people. The Minister hopes to achieve this additional growth in employment by stimulating market forces, encouraging competition and lowering the tax burden. The Minister's plan centres on wage moderation, which will be complemented by awarding entrepreneurs tax advantages and lowering corporation tax (at around 3%, current wage settlements are twice as high as the government's initial estimate). Over recent years, the annual growth in employment in the Netherlands, supported by high economic growth, has stood at an average of 156,000 jobs. However, growth forecasts for the coming years anticipate a downturn.

Meanwhile, also at the beginning of April, Rene van Boxtel, the Minister responsible for "integration policy for large cities", announced plans to address the disproportionately high level of unemployment amongst people from ethnic minorities (NL9805176F). In 1997, long-term unemployment amongst ethnic minority groups stood at 20%, compared with 5% for people of Dutch origin, and the Minister aims to reduce the disparity by half over the next three years to 7.5 percentage points. Municipalities and the Central Employment Services Authority (Centraal Bureau voor de Arbeidsvoorziening, CBA) will play an important role in meeting the planned objectives. The municipalities will contract companies to help find jobs for people from ethnic minorities and the CBA will allocate NLG 188 million of its budget to assist 10,000 long-term unemployed people from minorities in finding work. Young people receive special attention in the plan. Efforts to increase their chances in the job market include improving supervision during their educational career, which involves paying closer attention to developmental problems and language difficulties, reducing the number of dropouts and focusing specifically on reintegrating convicted juvenile offenders.

Results have already been achieved in reducing unemployment among older people. Over the past two years, the number of working adults aged 55 and older has increased by 35,000. In 1997, the proportion of older people in employment rose again towards 30%, which represented an increase of 2% over 1995. This increase is thought to stem from the more stringent criteria introduced for eligibility for a disability pension under the terms of the Disablement Benefits Act (WAO) and the abolition of the "older workers' directive" in the Unemployment Benefits Act (WW) - which allowed older workers to be made redundant first in some circumstances (NL9709131F) . The State Secretary for Social Affairs, Hans Hoogervorst, has announced plans in 1999 which go even further by requiring anyone aged 57.5 and older who is unemployed to accept an appropriate job, in order to retain benefit entitlement. Furthermore, he proposed that in the event of becoming unemployed, older employees who had previously accepted another job at a lower salary within the same company would be entitled to benefits calculated at the higher salary level.