Working Dutch have less money left over this year than Minister Wouter Koolmees of Social Affairs and Employment reported on Budget Day, due to an error made in the purchasing power figures. The figures for next year are correct, the Minister wrote in a letter to parliament, RTL Z reports.
All workers saw their purchasing power decrease. Single parents with a modal income even saw their purchasing power decrease by 0.3 percent, instead of the 0.1 percent increase Koolmees reported in September.
The number of people in the Netherlands on welfare declined for the second quarter in a row compared to a year earlier. At the end of March 459 thousand people under retirement age received a welfare benefit, 13 thousand fewer than in the same period a year earlier, Statistics Netherlands reported on Thursday.
The decline only applies to people under the age of 45. The number of people over the age of 45 receiving a benefit increased by two thousand compared to a year ago. According to the stats office, this is partly due to the increase of the retirement age to 66 years.
Only 11 percent of the 20 thousand asylum seekers who got refugee status in the Netherlands in 2014, had paid work in the summer of last year. A year and a half after obtaining refugee status, on 4 percent had paid work, according to figures Statistics Netherlands released on Tuesday.
Half of the refugees that came to the Netherlands in 2014 are from Syria. 10 percent of this group had paid work last summer - Statistics Netherlands' latest reference date. 6 percent of the 4 thousand Eritrean refugees had work. Most of the refugees in these two groups are still on welfare.
State Secretary Tamara van Ark of Social Affairs wants to make binding agreements with Dutch municipalities about enforcing the 'language requirement' when paying welfare benefits. This requirement - which states that people receiving social assistance benefits must be able to use the Dutch language or learn to do so quickly - was entered into Dutch law in 2016, but as an 'option' for municipalities. The government now wants to make it an obligation, the Volkskrant reports.
Artists more often have a low income and are more often dependent on benefits than other employed persons in the Netherlands, despite being a profession with a high education level. In the period between 2013 and 2015, over half of artists earned less than 30 thousand euros per year. The average for all employees is 39 percent, and 17 percent for all highly educated workers, Statistics Netherlands reported on Friday.
Two million women in the Netherlands are not economically independent and are therefore financially vulnerable, Statistics Netherlands reported on Wednesday based on figures from 2016. About a million men find themselves in the same position.
Of the financially vulnerable men, 27 percent have paid work, but earn less than a welfare benefit. The same is true for 35 percent of financially vulnerable women. 28 percent of the men receive a welfare benefit and 21 percent receive an occupational disability benefit. Among the women it is 17 and 13 percent.
A massive 31 percent of people who receive welfare benefits in the Netherlands are also receiving psychological treatment, according to a study by Statistics Netherlands and Harvard University. Among people who work or go to school, 10 percent undergo psychological treatment, NOS reports.
The number of people in the Netherlands receiving welfare benefits continues to rise, Statistics Netherlands reported on Thursday. Between June 2016 and June 2017, this group increased by 12 thousand people to a total of 472 thousand welfare recipients. The increase is smaller than in previous years, the stats office added.
The number of children in the Netherlands growing up in a family that receives welfare benefits increased by 2.1 percent to a total of 230 thousand last year, Statistics Netherlands reported on Friday. This number increased every year since 2012.
More than two thirds of children who lived on welfare last year had an immigration background. Half of this group fall under the "other non-western category", compared to 39 percent in 2012. In this category the stats office includes all non-western countries except Morocco, Suriname, Turkey, Aruba and the former Dutch Antilles.
Rotterdam helped 12 thousand unemployed people back to work six months before the city's self-set deadline to do so, Rotterdam alderman Maarten Struijvenberg announced. "The objective of our college was to achieve this result in four years. We did it six months earlier", he said on Tuesday, AD reports.
Political party Leefbaar Rotterdam plans to give some 40 thousand employed Rotterdam residents with a low income a 'work bonus' of 50 euros. A number of other parties in the city are critical of the plan, calling it an election stunt and stigmatizing to people living on welfare, NOS reports.
The Dutch government expects to make nearly 8 billion euros more on taxes and premiums than estimated on Budget Day last year, according to the Spring Memo sent to parliament by Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem on Thursday. The extra money mainly comes from VAT (€2.4 billion), corporate tax (€2.3 billion) and wage and income tax (€1.2 billion), NU.nl reports.
The Spring Memo shows the changes the government made since the budget was presented on Budget Day in September last year.
The number of welfare recipients in the Netherlands increased to 474 thousand in the first quarter of this year, Statistics Netherlands announced on Wednesday. That is 15 thousand more welfare recipients than the same quarter last year. According to the stats office, the increase can mainly be attributed to refugees who haven't been able to find a job.
Amsterdam is launching an experiment in paying welfare recipients for their voluntary work, alderman Arjan Vliegenthart announced. He set up this experiment in collaboration with neighborhood Oost based on a study that shows that volunteer work is dissatisfying in the long run if there is no reward, Het Parool reports.
The number of welfare recipients in the Netherlands increased by 4 percent last year, according to figures Statistics Netherlands released on Tuesday. At the end of December 2016 the Netherlands counted a total of 467 thousand welfare recipients, 18 thousand more than December 2015.
The growth can mainly be attributed to non-Western immigrants, particularly asylum seekers who were given refugee status in the Netherlands last year. After being given a residency permits, refugees can apply for welfare.
About 138 thousand Dutch twenty-somethings have no job and are not following any form of training, according to education organizations MBO Raad and NRTO. The groups are very concerned that these young adults will fall by the wayside, ANP reports.
"If we do nothing, this group will be the next lost generation, condemned to be on welfare until their retirement", Tom Heerts, chairman of the MBO Raad, and Hans Hillen, Charman of NRTO, said.
Amsterdam more than reached its goal on helping unemployed people in the city find work last year. In 2016 a total of 5,927 Amsterdam residents on welfare went back to work. The target was 4,200, the city announced in a press release, AT5 reports.
The city also guided more than 6,900 unemployed young people into training or work and another 4,500 long-term unemployed Amsterdam residents now volunteer or have meaningful daytime activities, according to the press release.
People working in the healthcare and welfare sector experience an above average workload, according to a study by Statistics Netherlands and TNO. They also feel they have less space to organize their work at their own discretion, NU.nl reports.
For this study, the researchers asked workers in various sectors about how they perceive their workload last year.
National Ombudsman Reinier van Zutphen calls on Dutch municipalities to immediately act on welfare requests from residents over the age of 27. A number of municipalities first require applicants to apply for jobs. According to the Ombudsman, this is "absolutely improper" and against the welfare rules, NU.nl reports.
The number of welfare recipients rose again in the second quarter of 2016. At the end of June a total of 463 thousand people in the Netherlands below retirement age were on welfare, 21 thousand more than the year before, according to figures released by Statistics Netherlands on Wednesday.
Last year was a very busy year for the Salvation Army in the Netherlands. The organization helped a record number of 89 thousand people, 10 thousand more than in 2014, according to the Salvation Army's annual report
The D66 is calling on the government to make 75 million euros available to quickly teach asylum seekers the Dutch language, party leader Alexander Pechtold said on the television program Buitenhof on Sunday
The number of people receiving welfare benefits in the Netherlands increased significantly in the first quarter of this year. In the first three months of 2016 a total of 459 thousand people were on welfare - an increase of 11 thousand compared to the previous quarter and 18 thousand compared to the same time last year, Statistics Netherlands announced on Tuesday.
Benefits agency UWV expects that the economic recovery will continue to mean an increase in the demand for labor this year and next year. UWV expects the number of jobs to grow by 1.1 percent this year and 0.9 percent in 2017, totalling in 200 thousand new jobs, according to the agency's latest forecast
