Chamber calls for full-time bonus, although there are legal hooks and practical eyes to it

Staff of primary school De Plotter in Zutphen meet before the start of the school year.Statue Marcel van den Bergh

What exactly is the government planning?

To encourage employees to work more, the government is considering introducing a so-called full-time bonus. This should help to combat shortages in the labor market, especially in healthcare and education. During the General Political Reflections, the House of Representatives urged the cabinet to speed up with this stimulating measure: a majority of the House of Representatives supported a motion by D66 and VVD to come up with ‘concrete actions’ before this calendar year. It is not yet clear what the full-time bonus should look like.

It is now clear that the labor market is struggling with major staff shortages. According to the UWV benefits agency, there were 44 percent more vacancies in the second quarter of this year than a year earlier. In all 92 professions which the UWV investigatedthere is now a shortage – a record.

The idea of ​​making employment conditions more attractive for employees who work longer hours has been on the table for some time. In 2020, the then Minister of Health Hugo de Jonge said he would discuss with employers and employees whether a full-time bonus could help the healthcare sector. Later that year, the government wrote that it expected that the effects would be minor, because the choice to work more ‘is related to several factors’.

How many Dutch currently work part-time?

In 2021, approximately 9.3 million Dutch people between the ages of 15 and 75 had a paid job, according to figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics. About half of this employed labor force has been working part-time for years. 28 percent of men work less than 35 hours a week, and 70 percent of women. On average, an employee’s working week lasts 30.9 hours. The percentage of part-time workers in healthcare, education and the catering industry was the highest.

From a European perspective, the Netherlands invariably ends up high on the list of countries with the most part-time workers, although the differences with neighboring countries Germany and Belgium are small. On the other hand, relatively many Dutch people have a job: 72.2 percent of 15 to 75-year-olds. In Greece, which has the longest average working week of all European countries at 40.1 hours, the number of people in work is actually low.

Is such a full-time bonus legally possible?

A bonus for full-time workers conflicts with the Working Hours Distinction Act. It states that making a distinction ‘on the basis of a difference in working hours’ is prohibited. The Institute for Human Rights judged last year that the full-time bonus is therefore only allowed if there is ‘a very good reason’ for it – and there is none according to the Institute. Moreover, if the full-time bonus is not paid to people who already work full-time, the measure would indirectly discriminate against men.

Nevertheless, Prime Minister Rutte is hopeful. According to him, the Council of State has indicated that the introduction of the full-time bonus is justifiable. “We still have to put that very precisely on paper,” he said during the debate on Thursday.

Does a full-time bonus actually remove the shortage on the labor market?

More work is, according to business organizations VNO-NCW, MKB-Nederland and AWVN the short-term solution for the labor shortage. If it paid more, 500 thousand part-time workers would want to work more hours, the organizations calculated. Two weeks ago, they therefore argued in favor of discussing a return to the 40-hour working week during collective bargaining.

However, for the sectors in which the shortages are greatest, a full-time bonus will not make the difference, expects Wieteke Graven, founder and chairman of the Het Potentieel Pakken foundation, which is committed to reducing the contract size of employees in care, education and childcare. enlarge. ‘A financial incentive is becoming increasingly important,’ says Graven. ‘But people mainly want to work more if their job is pleasant, because they have a pleasant schedule, are given attention and have autonomy in their work. You don’t get that with just a full-time bonus.’

Graven sees that the attention for the staff shortage has increased considerably in the past six months. But persuading people to work more takes more time, she says. ‘Over the past decades, we have created a standard for part-time work,’ says Graven. “It won’t be any different tomorrow.”

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