The Netherlands introduces legislation to improve rights of flexible workers

A new bill to provide flexible workers with more security in their jobs has been submitted to the House of Representatives. Under the new legislation that will come into effect in 2027, employees with temporary contracts will have more certainty about their income and working hours.

More certainty for flexible workers in the Netherlands

In the bill that Minister of Social Affairs and Employment Eddy van Hijum presented to the House of Representatives, temporary workers will be entitled to at least equivalent employment conditions as regular employees. 

Also included in the legislation titled “More certainty for flexible workers”, stricter rules will apply to prevent “revolving door constructions with temporary contracts”. Currently, after three successive temporary contracts, employers can not give another temporary contract for the following six months - this will be extended to five years under the new bill. The hope is that this will encourage employers to offer workers permanent contracts sooner.

Bandwidth contracts will also be introduced in place of zero-hour contracts. With these new types of contracts, on-call workers will have set minimum and maximum working hours instead of not knowing how many hours they will be working. However, zero-hour contracts can still be used for students and teenagers who are working while studying. 

The Netherlands has highest percentage of flexible workers in EU

Based on figures from Statistics Netherlands (CBS), the Netherlands has the highest percentage of flexible workers in the EU, reports NOS. Around 2,7 million people in the country work under a flexible work contract, while 5,5 million have a permanent contract and 1,5 million are freelancers. 

According to Van Hijum, the high number of people working in the Netherlands under “insecure employment contracts” means that many don’t feel secure enough to plan for the future, such as buying a house, getting married or having children. “For some companies and sectors, insecure work has become a profit model,” said Van Hijum in the report. “With this bill, we are directly increasing people's security of existence. And we are also making it more difficult to exploit people through revolving door or employment agency structures.” The legislation is set to come into effect from January 1, 2027.