Companies and staff not making changes yet to adhere to false self-employment rules

Most employers and employees have not been working on changing their contracts despite the fact that the government is going to start the enforcement of false self-employment soon. According to the employment group Randstad, many questions have been asked about it, but the number of self-employed contracts is still growing, and the number of temporary employment and secondment contracts has not yet increased. The listed company does see this as the most logical solution if working as a self-employed person is checked as of 1 January.

Randstad Nederland CEO Jeroen Tiel described it as “silence, but not before an expected storm.” Tiel expects the switch from self-employed contracts to temporary employment contracts to be “gradual.” He said during the press conference about the company's quarterly numbers.

"In education and healthcare, for example, we cannot afford to have an entire group of people suddenly sidelined. We all have to find a way to get around that,” he added.

State Secretary of Finance Folkert Idsinga confirmed last month that entrepreneurs should not expect a fine instantly in 2025 if they break the rules. A condition for this is that they have to show that they are taking steps against false self-employment.

The law intended to put an end to this abuse in the labor market came into force in 2016, but so far, action has only been taken in cases of obvious abuse.

Many self-employed people do not know what the change means for them exactly and how to handle it, Randstad reported based on a survey with over 600 self-employed people. Most people appear to want to adjust their assignments or clients (60 percent) or combine employment with self-employed work (31 percent).

According to Tiel, the workers still want “autonomy, flexibility, and self-direction.” This is why they think work from an employment agency is the most logical alternative for the quickly growing number of work on a self-employed basis.

Randstad thinks they can profit from this shift because they earn more money from temporary employment and secondment contracts than they do from self-employed people, and more people will be interested in that type of contract.

The change will make hiring people more expensive for employers because a higher VAT rate applies to temporary employment and secondment work.