Experts: Two extra hours from part-timers could add €35 billion to the Dutch economy

Despite the need for more workers in the Netherlands, over 4.8 million people work part-time, which is far more than in many other European countries. The impact of part-time workers taking on extra hours could be greater for the Dutch economy than people generally assume, according to analysts at RaboResearch. Adding two hours more to a part-time workers roster could grow the economy by 3 percent, equivalent to about 35 billion euros per year, or roughly 1,800 euros per person, economists Hugo Erken and Frank van Es told De Telegraaf.

Some 44 percent of the workforce in the Netherlands is made up of part-timers, compared to the European average of around 17 percent. This has resulted in labor shortages in many sectors even though unemployment is relatively low at 4 percent.

There are 3.2 million part-time workers aged between 25 and 65 - a group that could potentially work more, chief economist Peter Hein van Mulligen told De Telegraaf. “If we assume that a full-time job is 36 hours per week, and this group of part-timers worked two hours more per week, that would yield 180,000 FTEs,” or Full-Time Equivalent, a standard measure that converts part-time positions into an estimate of the full-time positions they represent.

The development is historically unusual for the country, and suggests changing attitudes towards the balance between professional time and personal time. “We don’t live to work here; we work to live,” Tilburg University Labor Market Professor Ton Wilthagen told the newspaper. “We have left Calvinism behind us.”

One area the Rabobank researchers took a closer look was in healthcare, where about 73 percent of employees work part-time. Waiting times for specialized care has a tendency to swell, like the 181-day waiting list at Catharina Hospital's cardiology department, the newspaper noted.

“If people can work two hours more per week, at first glance the shortages can already be absorbed,” Wilthagen said. At the same time, there is a wider picture to take into account, as part-time work has been a key reason to increase opportunities for women for nearly 50 years.

“There is a reason they choose part-time jobs. Moreover, if they were required to work more, they would face issues regarding childcare—arranging it and paying for it, to name just one example,” said Rob Witjes, a labor expert at the UWV benefits agency.

Further, more hours doesn't necessarily equate to more productivity, as people tire out the longer a work day gets. The workplace also needs to be able to handle the additional staffing.

"If more doctors work more hours, we also need to build more operating rooms, for instance—otherwise, how can they do their jobs? In short, if investments in machinery, computers, and other work tools don't keep pace with the increase in hours, we are less productive during those extra hours," Erken said.

The solution, Witjes said, is to focus on the group of part-timers that immediately want to work more hours, about 12 percent of the part-time workforce, according to figures from Statistics Netherlands. “So, let’s tap into the potential of that group first; among 25- to 65-year-olds, that already amounts to 263,000 people.”