Plan: the number of employees without pension should be halved

The number of employees without a supplementary pension scheme must be halved in the next five years to a maximum of 468,000 people. Employers’ clubs and trade unions have agreed on this objective, Minister Carola Schouten (Pensions, ChristenUnie) reported to the House of Representatives on Monday. They have also devised new measures to achieve that goal.

The employers and unions hope that this new commitment will increase political support for the bill that regulates the adjustment of the pension system.

When transitioning to that new system, pension funds will cut their collective pot into personal pension pots. The funds also no longer have to build up large financial reserves, so that people see investment gains and losses more quickly in their pot.

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The opposition parties PvdA and GroenLinks think this is a good idea, but have demanded more action in recent weeks to reduce the number of workers without pension accrual. The cabinet needs one of the two opposition parties to help the law get a majority in the Senate.

Temporary agency pension from day one

At the same time, Minister Schouten believes that pension accrual is primarily the responsibility of employers and trade unions themselves. “It is a condition of employment,” she said in the House of Representatives last week. So she asked them to come up with new ideas for this, in addition to a ‘plan of attack’ that they presented two years ago.

Their previous ‘plan of attack’ resulted in temporary workers now starting to build up pensions after eight weeks. Until recently, that build-up only started after six months.

Now ‘the polder’ is inclined to take it a step further: as soon as the pension accrual starts, still after eight weeks, the temporary agency worker will receive this accrual retroactively from day one. In addition, they write that the minimum age at which employees start their pension accrual may be legally reduced from 21 to 18 years.

The employers’ clubs still want to discuss both proposals with their supporters, who will therefore have to spend more money on pension contributions.

A duty is also proposed to inform employees if there is no pension accrual: this should be stated on the pay slip and annual statement. Schouten accepts that recommendation, she writes to the House.

No pension obligation

It is also in the interests of employers and trade unions that Schouten’s pension reform is brought to a successful conclusion. They have been working towards this for over twelve years. This eventually led to a pension agreement with the previous cabinet in 2019, which has now been converted into a bill.

The intention is that these new plans, together with the measures from the earlier ‘plan of attack’, will lead to a halving of the number of people without pension accrual in 2027, compared to 2019, the last known figures from Statistics Netherlands.

These plans do not yet meet all the requirements of the PvdA and GroenLinks. They also asked Minister Schouten for a ‘big stick’. The parties are fine with employers and unions first trying to achieve this halving together. But if that doesn’t work, the government should intervene, they believe.

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PvdA and GroenLinks do not know what measures the cabinet should take. They would prefer that every employer be obliged to offer a pension scheme, but there seems to be no political support for this.

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