Minister Wouter Koolmees (Social Affairs) will examine how flex workers who have lost their jobs due to the corona crisis and who are not eligible for the current measures from the emergency package can still be compensated.
Under pressure from the House of Representatives, led by the PvdA opposition party, Koolmees is going to see whether it is possible to “accommodate in any way people with a flex contract who fall by the wayside”, he said in a parliamentary debate on the emergency package on Tuesday.
The House wants the cabinet to look at a temporary, feasible scheme for flex workers who have no work since 1 March.
“Thousands of people with a temporary contract are the hardest hit,” said PvdA MP Gijs van Dijk. Despite the call for speed, Great Tit said he could not come up with a solution within a week.
These are temporary employees, on-call workers and other employees with a flexible contract who have been dismissed despite the NOW wage measure. They have built up little or no unemployment rights, so they do not receive unemployment benefits. Subsequently, this group is also not entitled to social assistance benefits because it examines the partner’s income or assets.
The Tozo self-employed scheme, whereby self-employed people receive social assistance benefits from their municipality, often also does not apply to them, because they do not meet the hourly criterion of 24 hours a week.
Situation causes great tit ‘abdominal pain’
In short: the income loss of these people is great, but they are not entitled to anything and thus fall between two stools. “These people have fallen into a trap,” concluded Van Dijk.
Great Tit himself also gets “abdominal pain” when he thinks of the problems of this group. Not only because these people suddenly have no income anymore, but also because it is difficult to make a specific arrangement. To date, the government has set up the widest possible emergency package, without customization.
The NOW scheme was put on the market under high pressure within a few weeks; normally a year is allocated for such a project. In a week, more than 80,000 applications were received and a total of 1.3 billion euros was transferred for nearly 1.3 million employees. The government has reserved a total of EUR 10 billion for this measure.
Extra measures for the culture sector and floriculture
The wage measure is simple: if companies in the months of March, April and May have at least a 20 percent loss of turnover compared to the same period a year earlier, they can be reimbursed part of the wage costs up to a maximum of 90 percent.
That simplicity is for practicality and to combat fraud and abuse. “That works well for most companies,” said Koolmees. But he also sees that it is pinching for seasonal sectors, such as floriculture, cultural institutions and the event industry.
That is why the Cabinet will examine whether additional measures are needed and whether they can be implemented. This happens outside the NOW wage measure. Great Tit could not yet make it concrete. “It is complicated,” said the minister.
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