Aggression to Civil Servants

40 Percent of the civil servants working for the national government, provinces, municipalities and water authorities has encountered the last year violence or aggression during their job. This announced Minister Plasterk (Internal Affairs) today to the House. For civil servants who deal directly with people, the percentage goes up to 50%. Aldermen and mayors also get their portion of violence and aggression with resp. 50% and 60%. The most unfortunate are people who work for the police (73%) and court bailiffs (92%). Recently the Volkskrant reported that inspectors of the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority face increasing violence and aggression, especially during smoking inspections in the catering and hospitality sector. These inspectors receive death threats and are roughly kicked out of bars. 60,000 less civil servants Plasterk also announced that in the coming years the number of civil servants will decrease with 60,000 to 1 million in 2016. All sectors will lose civil servants: government, municipalities, provinces, water authorities, education, police, defense, research institutions and at the courts. The decrease is mainly a result of the aging of the population. Many servants will retire and the open spots will not be used for hiring new people. The employees who remain will on average be older. There are less children, because of the smaller families of today, and this decreases the number of jobs in education. The only sector which doesn’t face a decrease in number of positions are the university hospitals, due to the increasing demand for health care. The goal of the government to decrease the size of the public authorities is going to be easily met in 2016, according to Plasterk.