Banker's bonus limit could cost Netherlands 17,000 jobs: Employers assoc.

Should the Netherlands decide to stick to its low banker's bonus limit, the country could lose out on 17 thousand extra jobs and 1 billion euros in income and corporation tax, says employers' organization VNO-NCW. According to the organization, dozens of small financial institutions and at least three major international banks would move from London to the Netherlands after the Brexit, if the bonus limit was not an obstacle, NU.nl reports.

Exactly which financial institutions are involved, the VNO-NCW did not say.

The Netherlands has a stricter banker's bonus policy than other EU countries. Since 2015 employees in the financial sector can not get a higher bonus than 20 percent of their fixed salaries. In other EU countries, bonuses in this sector are capped at 100 percent of fixed salary. 

On Tuesday the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, is voting on a PvdA motion that, if accepted, will prevent future adjustments to the bonus law to appease British banks. "We should not bend for British bonus bankers and put our economy on the scale of their reckless behavior", PvdA MP Henk Nijboer said. 

VNO-NCW chairman Hans de Boer calls on parliamentarians to vote against the motion. "This is the wrong signal to send to investors who are seriously interested in our country and in this way we miss out on jobs and taxes that we can use well", he said, according to the newspaper. This week the Tweede Kamer has the opportunity to show that foreign banks are welcome in the Netherlands, according to De Boer.