Almost half of workers living in poverty only work part of the year

© ANP / Hans van Rhoon
In 2024, there were 175 thousand workers who did not have enough money in their household for basic needs such as food, clothing and social activities after paying their fixed expenses. In total, 44 percent of this group only worked part of the year. They had just started working or had stopped working, or had alternating periods of temporary employment and unemployment. Among the total in-work population, this was ten percent. This is according to research on workers living in poverty by Statistics Netherlands (CBS).
Two percent of the 8.5 million people in work in 2024 were living in poverty.


Less work experience and younger workers

Workers living in poverty are less likely to have work experience than the in-work population as a whole. In 2024, 63 percent of workers living in poverty had less than four years of paid work as their main source of income, compared to 18 percent of all workers. A total of 95 percent of workers living in poverty in 2024 who had not worked before, were on flexible or part-time contracts. A quarter of these workers would like to work more hours, compared to 7 percent of all workers.

Almost a quarter of working people living in poverty were aged under 25 in 2024, compared to 9 percent of all workers. Working people living in poverty are also more likely to live alone or in a single-parent family (67 percent), compared to 25 percent of the employed population as a whole.


Number of working people living in poverty rose in 2024

The number of working people living in poverty rose by 26 thousand in 2024 compared to 2023. This increase was most pronounced among both employed persons and self-employed workers. In the previous five years however, the number of working people living in poverty had been slowly decreasing. This decline was partly due to temporary measures to support people affected by the coronavirus pandemic and the energy crisis. The energy allowance was discontinued in 2024.

Self-employed workers without staff at higher risk of in-work poverty

In 2024, self-employed workers without staff (zzp'ers) were more than twice as likely to live in poverty (4.4 percent) than employed persons and self-employed workers with staff (zmp'ers). In terms of numbers, however, employed persons were in the majority, at 118 thousand.

Self-employed workers without staff living in poverty were more likely to experience long-term poverty than employed persons or self-employed workers with staff. In 2024, 1.1 percent of self-employed workers without staff had been living in a household in poverty for three years or more. Among employed persons and self-employed workers with staff, this was 0.2 and 0.4 percent, respectively.

In total, 30 thousand working people lived in household in long-term poverty in 2024, an increase of 1.5 thousand compared with 2024. This was the first rise in the poverty rate following years of decreases, although the number remained significantly lower than in 2020, when 46 thousand working people living in poverty were in long-term poverty.

Self-employed workers face larger income shortfalls

In 2024, the average income of working people living in poverty was 25 percent below the poverty line. This means that half of them had an income that was over 25 percent below the poverty line. The income shortfall for those living in poverty was larger among self-employed workers without staff (33 percent) and self-employed workers with staff (37 percent) than among employed persons (22 percent).

The median income shortfall was larger among working people living in poverty than among those who had other sources of income, such as benefits. In 2024, the average income shortfall for working people living in poverty was 19 percent below the poverty line.

Sources

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