News item | 12-05-2026 | 15:55
Employees with a flexible employment contract have more certainty about their income and their working hours. Today the House of Representatives adopted the bill that regulates this from Minister Vijlbrief of Social Affairs and Employment. The Netherlands has by far the most people with a flexible contract in the entire EU: 2.7 million people. That is almost 3 in 10. Stricter rules will therefore be introduced to prevent revolving door constructions with temporary contracts. And on-call contracts are being replaced by contracts with a minimum number of hours that you are paid and scheduled as standard. If the Senate also agrees, the bill can come into effect on January 1, 2028.
Minister Hans Vijlbrief: “This bill gives people more certainty about how many hours they work and what their income is. Once you know that, you can make plans for the future. And that security also offers room for training and development, which is good for the employee and the employer. This bill has the support of both trade unions and employers, and I am very pleased that a large majority in Parliament now supports it. I am going to ask the Senate to quickly put this bill on the agenda, so that we can… can get started quickly.”
Revolving door constructions
With this new law, the starting point is that temporary contracts are only intended for temporary work. After a temporary contract, employees must be given permanent employment more quickly and they may no longer be given a temporary contract again after 6 months.
On-call contracts
A bandwidth contract will be introduced instead of the zero-hours contracts. A minimum and maximum number of hours are agreed, with a maximum difference of 130%. This means that with a minimum of 10 hours, the maximum is 13 hours. Calls that exceed the maximum may be refused by the employee. And if more work is done on a structural basis, a contract must be offered with a higher number of hours.
Temporary workers
People who work through a temporary employment agency must receive at least equal employment conditions as people who are regularly employed. This already followed for remuneration from a ruling by the European Court of Justice, and is now laid down in Dutch law for all employment conditions. The phases of temporary work in which you can be fired every day or do not know how many hours you can work will also be shortened from a year and a half to 1 year. In this way, the bill provides more security for temporary workers.
Adjustments by the House of Representatives
The House of Representatives has made some adjustments to the law. For example, after 3 temporary contracts, no more temporary contracts may be concluded for 3 years. In the previous bill this was still 5 years. AOW recipients will also soon be allowed to work on an on-call contract. The law already had this exception for young people, pupils and students with part-time jobs. And finally, the minister will have the opportunity to intervene if there is structural underpayment in the temporary employment sector.
Labor market package
Together with several other bills, this proposal constitutes a reform of the Dutch labor market that should provide more security for employees and more agility for entrepreneurs. It is the first major labor market package bill to be adopted. These bills arise from agreements that the cabinet made with trade unions and employers in 2023 and are based on the Borstlap committee report from 2020 and the SER advice from 2021.
