The First Part-TIME Economy in the World
Does it Work?
Belgium, but higher than in Germany or France). It goes without saying that productivity
per person is much lower as this reflects the low average annual working time and a strong
preference for part-time employment in the Netherlands.
According to the Central Planning Bureau (CPB), the government’s official economic
forecasting office, wage moderation has been ‘Holland’s single most important weapon in
international competition’. CPB estimates that the effect of lower labour costs has
dominated the effect of lower aggregate demand. For the second half of the 1980s the
Bureau estimates that two-thirds of job growth can be attributed to wage moderation and
one-third to the expansion of the world economy. The Dutch Central Bank (DNB) points out
that whereas unit labour costs in manufacturing rose with 2 percent in France and 2.6
percent in Germany between 1983 and 1995, the rise was zero in the Netherlands. During
this period employment increased with 0.1 percent per year in France, 0.4 percent in
Germany, and 1.5 percent in the Netherlands.
3.2 The Shift to Services
Measured by the size of its industrial sector, the Netherlands has never been a classical
industrial country. At its maximum, around 1960, manufacturing industry (including mining
and utilities) employed only around one-third of the labour force, much less than in
Germany, France, Britain or Belgium. Restructuring, labour shedding and relocation of
labour intensive manufacturing industries to low wage countries, combined with divestment
and contracting out of activities to services, have reduced the size of the manufacturing
sector (including gas and oil mining and utilities) to only 18.2 per cent of total employment
in 1996. Employment in services has leaped to 74 per cent. In the past ten years growth has
been strongest in commercial services (i.e. commerce and retailing, hotels and restaurants,
financial and business services, and communication), from 20 to 30 per cent of total
employment between 1960 and 1987 and to 37 per cent in 1996. The share of non-tradable
services (i.e., government, social and community services, and personal services) rose from
21 to 30 per cent to 1987 and has since stagnated.
In occupational terms these shifts are even larger. The share of manual and technical
occupations in manufacturing, mining, construction and transport nearly halved from 43 per
cent of total employment in 1960 to 23 per cent in 1994. The share of servicing,
administrative and commercial occupations increased from 30 to 38 per cent; and the share
of specialist, scientific and managerial occupations doubled from 12 to 25 per cent. There
were strong within-sector shifts as well; for instance, within manufacturing the share of
administrative, commercial, professional and managerial jobs increased from 35.5 per cent
in 1977 to 46.5 per cent in 1993.
The service sector has attracted large numbers of women into the labour market. Almost
half of the women who found a job since 1975 did so in only four sectors: health, education,
community and social services, and retailing. The strongest rise occurred among married
women. Although the absolute number of married women in the working population at
working age (15-64) decreased with around 100,000, the number of married women in the
labour force increased with 800,000, and the participation rate of married women jumped
from 15 per cent in 1975 to 42 per cent in 1994. Among unmarried women the rise was less
pronounced, from 43 percent to 55 per cent, contributing an extra 600,000 to the labour
force. The proportion of women who expected their first child and had no paid employment
dropped from 33 to 19 per cent between 1980 and 1992. The share of women who did work
but stopped fell from 55 to 35 per cent. The share of women who continued working but