People more concerned about losing their jobs

• More than one million employees fear for their jobs
• Many temp jobs in jeopardy
• Increased concerns in sectors hotels and restaurants, transport and communication

The first results of the National Survey Working Conditions 2008 conducted by the National Organisation for Apllied Scientific Research (TNO) and Statistics Netherlands in cooperation with the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment at the end of 2008 show that by the end of last year, one million employees (18 percent) reported they were concerned about losing their jobs. This is a slight increase relative to the end of 2007, when about 16 percent of employees were afraid of becoming unemployed.

Men, employees aged between 45 and 54 and lower educated workers are less confident about keeping their jobs than women, young people and higher educated. There is growing concern about becoming unemployed across all categories of employees compared to 2007. With 30 percent, the increase was above average among employees with a non-western background and nearly twice as high as among the native Dutch population.

With an increase from 34 percent at the end of 2007 to 43 percent at the end of 2008, the fear of losing their jobs was highest among temps. More than half of temps above the age of 24 think their jobs are in jeopardy. People employed on a temporary basis awaiting a fixed contract are also much more often afraid of becoming unemployed than by the end of 2007. 

With 27 percent, people working in the sector transport and communication worry most about becoming jobless. In this sector and in the sector hotels and restaurants, the number of people in fear of losing their jobs had increased most compared to one year ago.

Two in five employees indicated at the end of 2008 that all kinds of changes like reorganisations, take-overs, mergers and staff cuts were carried out in the organisations they worked for. More than 900 thousand employees in the Netherlands were faced with staff cuts and/or forced layoffs at the end of 2008. One in three were in fear of losing their jobs. In the case of forced layoffs, more than 40 percent of employees were worried about losing their jobs.