WP RR 17 - Industrial relations in the transport sector in the Netherlands

Table 1 Size and number of companies and employees in road haulage⁵ in 1997

Source: CBS, kerncijfers verkeer en vervoer, 1999.

Of the 187,000 people working in the road transport, roughly 90 percent is employee, 7
percent is owner, firm holder or family member, 3 percent works on a flexible basis
(CBS, Kerngegevens verkeer en vervoer, 1999).

Within the category of people's transport, the subsectors are public transport, private
transport by bus and transport by taxi. In Table 2, we present the relevant statistics in
road transport according to this subdivision. Most companies in transport (72 percent) are
active in the road haulage of freight. This is also the subsector that employs most people
(62 percent).

Table 2 Number of companies and employees by type of activity in road haulage in
1997

According to our interviews, the following developments play a crucial role in road
transport. First, the application of information technology has resulted in an increasing
scale-enlargement of the activities in the sector. Since 10-15 years, especially American
enterprises are developing logistic networks in Europe that can be managed efficiently
with use of information technology. Scale enlargement also occurs due to the investments
put in mergers and take-overs of enterprises. Examples are van Gend en Loos (now part
of Deutsche post), UPC and Fedex.

⁵ These figures also include services with regard to road transport (6321) and pipelines transport (603). Without
pipelines transport and services with regard to road haulage, the total number of companies amounts to 12,270; the
number of people working in the subsector is 181,200 (CBS, Kerncijfers Verkeer en Vervoer, 1999).

⁶ Note that these figures are from 1997 and that the present number of companies is probably higher.

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