Fewer flexible work contracts

In 2000, 530 thousand employees in the Netherlands had a flexible contract of employment. These "flex-workers" either have a contract for less than one year, or work for a varying number of hours a week. The category includes temporary agency workers, and stand-by and substitute employees. Some 196 thousand of the 530 thousand flex-workers had been placed by a temporary employment agency.

Workers with a flexible employment contract, 2000

Fewer flex-workers

The number of flex-workers was 41 thousand lower in 2000 than in 1999. This was the second year in a row that the number of employees with a flexible contract decreased, a reflection of the current labour shortage in the Netherlands. The share of flexible work in total employment, however, is still higher than at the beginning of the nineties: in 1992 eight percent of all employees had a flexible work contract, while in 2000 nine percent had such a contract.

More young people and women have a flexible contract

Young people in particular are flexible in their labour market participation. In 2000 one quarter of people under 25 years had a flexible contract, compared with on average over six percent of those aged over 25. Women are more than one and a half times as likely to have a flexible contract than men.

Flex-workers as a percentage of all employees, by age and sex, 2000

Sabine Lucassen