130,000 people in the Netherlands saw their wages drop in 2020
Data from the Dutch Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) revealed that wages for 130,000 people in the Netherlands fell as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
More than 100,000 workers have seen their incomes drop by at least 10%
The CPB notes that every year in the Netherlands people suffer from stagnating or falling wages, but highlighted the fact that in 2020 the number of workers facing “a lagging growth in labor income” was 175,000 above normal.
Furthermore, while most incomes remained stable or increased slightly in 2020, around 130,00 people with jobs in the Netherlands saw their wages drop by at least 10% between 2019 and 2020 due to the pandemic and the so-called coronavirus crisis.
Flexible workers and freelancers in the hospitality industry have been hardest hit
Unsurprisingly, the CPB found that flex workers and the self-employed suffered the greatest losses, and the agency notes that these groups were not only “more at risk of loss of income”, but that they “had also less financial reserves to absorb the consequences”. Entrepreneurs and workers in the hospitality sector have been hardest hit.
“The biggest blow came in the first half of 2020, a rapid recovery in the second half of this year prevented the worst,” says the CPB, pointing out that many workers who lost their jobs at the start of the pandemic had found (others) work by the end of the year.