English/Nat
With unemployment in
Europe at its highest level since
World War Two,
European Union leaders are to meet on Thursday (
November 20) to see what action can be taken to reduce the E-U's 18 million (m) jobless.
One economy they will be studying closely is that of the
Netherlands, which has seen a decade of steady growth and stable employment.
A-P-T-V takes a look at the factors which have made the
Dutch economy one of the healthiest in Europe.
The continual rumble of trucks entering and leaving the world's biggest port of
Rotterdam is proof of
Holland's healthy economy.
While jobless rates on the continent have shot to their highest level since the
1930s Depression,
The Netherlands has seen a decade of steady growth and high employment.
The roots of the
Dutch success stem from an unprecedented pact the government struck with business and the unions in
1982.
In a bid to support job creation, unions froze wage demands and employers cut working hours.
And to ensure workers' protection, the government went easy on welfare cuts.
The switch to so-called flexi-work has produced impressive results for the Netherlands.
Growth since
1991 has averaged 2.
5 percent a year, outpacing that of Holland's E-U partners and the
United States.
In the first half of
1997, the economy grew even by 2.9 percent.
Unemployment is
5.5 percent, half that of
Germany and
France.
The Dutch have nurtured collaboration between business and labour to develop a dynamic U-S-style, flexible labour market.
They have cut bureaucracy making it easier and cheaper for companies to hire, fire and move workers.
On top of that they concentrate on doing business in areas where they are successful.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"The main success is that we concentrate on our core business. We concentrate on our core activities, which means that we are specialists in many fields. And we can be very good at that."
SUPERCAPTION: Diederik Renne, manager of
Randstad Interim bureau in
Rotterdam
Holland has a labour-market flexibility unthinkable in most other E-U nations.
Today, 38 per cent of the Dutch workforce are part timers. This compares well above
Britain which is the runner-up with 22 per cent.
Workers hired by the Netherlands' booming temporary employment agencies account for
3.5 percent of the labour force - double the
French and
German rates
.
In the Netherlands small and medium sized companies are extremely successful at using flexible workers and recruiting competent people from all over Europe.
A good example is
Palmtop, a company developing software for
Psion in Hoofddorp, a town south west of
Amsterdam.
The company started up in 1991 with only six employees, today it has 17 young people from all over Europe working for it.
The French managing director of the company is hailing the general trade culture in
Holland.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"The
Polder model or the Dutch model, I find, is more open and less rigid than I experienced in other
European countries, as in France or
England. The mentalities here are much more open and encourage flexible work as a model. For a company like us, which has to be fast, opportunist and really ahead of technology all the time, it's
the best possible country in Europe to work in."
SUPERCAPTION:
Corinne Vigreux, managing director of Palmtop,
software developing company
E-U leaders would like to see unemployment reduced from the current
10.6 per cent to seven per cent by
2002.
They will be looking closely at the Dutch example when they meet this week in
Luxembourg.
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- published: 21 Jul 2015
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