Back in 2016, the message was already loud and clear: self-employment in the Netherlands is “cool”, as Erasmus University Rotterdam reported at the time. By January 2024, the Dutch Chamber of Commerce (KvK) counted around 1.6 million self-employed people in the Netherlands, and with the strong increase over the past ten years, the search for flexibility will continue to grow, say experts.
The number of self-employed people has increased by 85% between 2014 and 2024, according to the Chamber of Commerce. Most of them are now working in business services, followed by construction and healthcare, and some of the strongest growth rates were in logistics, catering, healthcare and construction. There were also high increases among the youngest (up to 24 years) and the highest age groups (65-70 and 70+), and large numbers of women have also made the transition to self-employment in healthcare, agriculture and horticulture.
Interesting trend
So, what is behind the sharp growth in the number of self-employed people? The relative ease and accessibility with which self-employed people today can learn about all aspects of self-employment and receive support from others is often emphasised by experts.
The Chamber of Commerce attributes its popularity among people at a later age to the struggle to make ends meet on their pension, or simply to the preference to remain active. About young entrepreneurs it states: ‘There is a lot of attention for self-employment within education, the digital skills of this generation, low barriers to many digital activities such as vlogging and blogging, and exemplary icons on social media.’
Human resource expert No Brothers, which lists benefits such as being able to follow a passion, and the ability to tailor work, clients and hours to personal wishes and needs, calls the development an “interesting trend”. The desire for less responsibility and more freedom was also brought to attention by the NOS in 2023, when professor of strategy, organisation and entrepreneurship Erik Stam said: ‘Many people have tasted it, everyone knows someone who does it… and people inspire each other. It is the combination of years of tax benefits for starters and self-employed people, the Dutch desire for autonomy and technological progress, and [the fact] that you can start a company from your own home.’
Tight market
Another reason experts give is the country’s persistently tight market, with the abundance of unfilled vacancies creating an advantageous position for workers. ‘Employees have more choice and therefore more negotiating power,’ Mario Bersem, sector economist at ABN Amro, told NOS. ‘They can therefore complete their work with more autonomy and variety,’ he added.
In fact, according to the 2023 October ABN Amro’s State of Business Services report, 6.3 percent of employees in the Netherlands, especially those in healthcare, are choosing to be both employed and self-employed. A financial advisor for seniors explained how she started freelancing as a high school French teacher in addition to her job, to counterbalance some of the challenging aspects of her regular work, such as end-of-life scenarios for clients.
Catches
There are a few catches though – or a few ‘vipers under the grass’ as the Dutch would say – from the lack of a fixed income and no automatic pension to high start-up costs and having to generate sufficient customers and income. There is also a lot of attention to the looming introduction of new rules to regulate self-employment in 2025, such as lower tax benefits, and to the increasingly unhealthy balance between the number of self-employed and employees. To restore this balance, some healthcare institutions are taking measures to discourage self-employment in their sector, according to Statistics Netherlands (CBS).
Moving forward
Roy Thurik, professor of economics and entrepreneurship at the Erasmus School of Economics, said in 2016: ‘A successful entrepreneur is someone who is open to the people around him or her, someone who doesn’t mind being an outsider, and someone who can be tough and knows what he can and cannot do.’ It seems that since then, more and more people in the Netherlands have started seeing the benefits of working independently. Experts such as those from ABN Amro even predict that the strong call for autonomy and variation in the labour market is set to continue in the future.
Written by Femke van Iperen