Dutch labour market gains momentum

• Temporary job rarely springboard for regular job
• Older people with long tenures often take early retirement
• For lower educated workers, job enlargement and/or training often precede internal mobility on a voluntary basis

The number of people switching from one job to another typically increases if the economy is booming and declines if the economy is shrinking. In recent years, more people seem prepared to accept new positions. The job change rate was about the same in 2009 as in 2007, when the economy was thriving. This conclusion is borne out in the joint publication “Dynamiek op de Nederlandse Arbeidsmarkt: De focus op kwetsbare groepen”  released today by Statistics Netherlands and the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO).

Temporary jobs do not often lead to regular jobs. On the contrary, people in temporary  jobs are at greater risk to become unemployed than those working in regular jobs. After losing their jobs, the period of unemployment for temp workers is not shorter than for people with regular jobs.

Older people are less willing to change jobs than young people. Between 2008 and 2009, only 4.4 percent of employees aged between 45 and 65 changed jobs versus 24.2 percent of employees aged between 15 and 25. If older employees lose their jobs, they are less likely to find new ones. Only 6.4 percent of 45 to 65-year-olds who had no paid jobs in 2008 had managed to find a paid job one year later. Older people with long tenures more often retire early.

For lower educated, job enlargement and/or training often precedes voluntary internal mobility. This does not apply to external mobility.