The future labour market
Minister Van Gennip (Social Affairs and Employment) sent a package of labour market measures to the Lower House on 3 April (Kamerbrief over voortgang uitwerking arbeidsmarktpakket | Kamerstuk | Rijksoverheid.nl). The Minister largely follows the so-called ‘Borstlap Committee’ and the SER Advice and gives an advance insight into what the labour market should look like (at the latest) in 2025, according to the Cabinet.
The future of the labour market: level playing field between permanent contract and self-employed/flex worker
The playing field between the self-employed and the employee must be levelled so that employees are not (forced to) wrongly choose one form of contract or the other. The tax benefits of self-employment are being phased out. Moreover, a compulsory disability insurance for the self-employed is being worked on.
The differences between permanent and flexible contracts will also be reduced. As a result, employers will – the minister expects – more often opt for a permanent contract. That remains to be seen, as the dismissal law will not be further relaxed and the legal obligation to continue paying wages in case of illness will remain at two years. In addition, many employers need certain flexible shells to cope with the ups and downs in the workload.
1. Flexible workers get more security
On-call contracts, such as zero-hours and/or min-max contracts, will be abolished from 1 January 2025. These will be replaced by a ‘basic contract’, which has yet to be fleshed out. Scholars and students can still continue to work on the basis of current on-call contracts. The employer’s flexible shell will thus be further curtailed. This is again expected to lead to an increase in self-employed workers.
2. Smaller firms’ obligations for long-term incapacitated workers are reduced.
From 1 January 2025, small and medium-sized employers (up to 100 employees) may determine by mutual agreement that reintegration with their own employer (‘first track’) is no longer reasonable and focus entirely on reintegration with another employer (‘second track’). Employers, on the other hand, remain obliged to continue paying wages during illness for two years. They are also co-responsible for the reintegration process. The incapacitated employee retains the right to return to his own job, should he recover in the second year of illness and if the employer has not yet permanently filled his original position.
3. In a crisis or calamity, a company can retain employees
There will be a Crisis Staff Retention Scheme (‘CP’), formerly part-time unemployment. Employers can claim this if there is at least 20% less work across the company. The scheme will be aimed at coping with crisis and calamities, which fall outside the regular business risk (e.g. in case of another lockdown due to a pandemic). The CP implies that only 80% wages need to be paid on the number of hours not worked in a crisis situation. Of this, the employer can then claim back 60% under the scheme.
4. So-called false self-employment among self-employed workers will be reduced
There are almost 1.2 million self-employed in the Netherlands. Among them are also a large number of “false self-employed”. In fact, Deliveroo’s meal deliverers, Uber’s drivers were also pseudo self-employed.
The lack of protection in case of illness and dismissal and the fact that these self-employed workers (wrongly) only contribute to social security to a limited extent is seen as problematic.
There will therefore be legislation, which will define the ‘organisational embeddedness of the work and the worker’. This is the decisive criterion on the basis of which a commission contract may turn out to be an employment contract after all. In addition, this should combat false self-employment. Moreover, it will become easier for self-employed persons to claim an employment contract. Indeed, there will be a civil-law legal presumption of an employment contract linked to an hourly rate (a possible rate below €35 per hour). If the zzp’er’s hourly rate is higher, this will be a contraindication for a contract for services.
Finally, the enforcement moratorium by the tax authorities will finally be lifted in 2025 and the (to be adapted) DBA Act will be enforced again. The question is, however, whether the tax authorities will then have sufficient capacity to actually enforce it.
Questions about the future of the labour market and implications for your organisation?
In short; another set of far-reaching labour market changes are on the agenda. Do you have questions about how these labour market changes will affect your organisation? Then contact Richard Ouwerling, employment law lawyer at LVH Advocaten in Rotterdam for more information.
