Employers: Four-day work week is "unrealistic", union pay demands are "incredibly high"

Employers said they were shocked by demands by labor unions FNV and CNV for higher wages, and a shorter work week. They responded on Monday to the CNV's proposal last week, and the FNV's demands which were issued earlier on Monday. The groups representing employers said one specifically "unrealistic" proposal was the FNV's bid to cut the working week down to four days.

"There are already too few people to do all the work," responded a spokesperson for employers' association AWVN. If anything, more hours need to be worked to solve the labor shortage, not fewer, the association said. "How are you going to arrange that in the healthcare sector, for example? There are not enough hands at the bedside already," said the spokesperson regarding a shorter work week.

The FNV called for workers to get a 7 percent wage increase, while CNV proposed pay raises of 3.5 to 6 percent. This is "incredibly high," and can be damaging to the Dutch economy, he said. The AWVN is among the most important advisors on employment conditions for Dutch employers.

"Wage increases mean higher wage costs for companies. This is at the expense of the competitiveness of Dutch companies and therefore weakens the economy."

Business associations VNO-NCW and MKB-Nederland also found FNV's wage demands to be too high. "We've made up for lost time. Purchasing power has recovered from the inflation shock. So it's time to go back to normal." They also don't like the idea of a shorter working week. "We shouldn't forget that people in the Netherlands also have to work."

FNV presented its demands for the upcoming collective labor agreement season on Monday. The union wants to focus on a 7 percent wage increase, a minimum wage of 16 euros per hour and a four-day work week of 32 hours during its negotiations on collectively bargained contracts. The CNV said on Friday that it would focus on a 3.5 to 6 percent wage increase, and spoke of an ideal scenario of a 30-hour work week.

According to FNV Vice-Chair Zakaria Boufangacha, a shortening of the working week should actually counteract the tightness on the labour market. He referred to a study that shows that the number of available workers would then increase, partly because this will al so lead to a reduction in workers who are absent due to illness. But AWVN sees this differently and fears the unions demand will have a detrimental effect.

Earlier this year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that the major shortage of workers in several sectors in the Netherlands, like healthcare and technology, is likely to increase in the coming years as a result of the ageing population. According to the IMF, it is therefore important to make better use of the workforce available to the Netherlands. IMF researcher Bernardin Akitoby said one of the measures needed is to persuade part-timers to work more hours.

One of the country's biggest banks, ABN Amro, also thinks the four-day work week "will be difficult" because the labor market is already very tight, while the Dutch working population is aging. An economist at the bank, Aggie van Huisseling, said such issues on the labor market will not be resolved by having employees work four days a week instead of five.

Van Huisseling said she expects unemployment to remain low in the coming years due to the continued strong demand for labor and the limited supply of available workers. In addition, the growth of the working population in the Netherlands is coming to a standstill.

"From 2027, the working population will even start to shrink due to the aging of the population," said Van Huisseling. This will further increase the pressure on labor-intensive sectors, such as healthcare, where there is already a significant shortage of personnel, she pointed out.

The economist instead argued for flexibility in the number of hours people want to work to attract more people to the labor market, rather than shortening working hours. "It is wise to let people decide for themselves whether they want to work more or fewer hours," she said.