Speech by minister of Social Affairs and Employment Wouter Koolmees at the G20 ministerial meeting in Catania
Dear Chair, colleagues,
First, let me thank the Italian Presidency for organizing this meeting on topics that are now more relevant than ever.
During the COVID pandemic, certain vulnerabilities in our societies have become clearly visible to all. When it comes to social protection, some are simply more vulnerable than others.
The pandemic has also accelerated the process of digitalization. This also brings challenges with regard to social protection.
Don’t get me wrong. Digitalization brings greater flexibility for workers and employers, and can be beneficial for our economies. But we have to make sure these developments do not result in increasing inequality.
How, is the question? Let me present three points in this regard.
The first point is about platform work.
The share of platform work in our economy is still small, but has grown substantially especially for younger workers. This has led to questions about social protection coverage.
In the present system in the Netherlands, platform workers are often classified as self-employed, while in fact they work as employees. That’s why I am currently working on the introduction of a legal presumption
of an employer-employee relationship. This means that a regular employee-employer relationship would be the standard. With this measure we ensure that platform workers receive adequate social protection.
However, platform work does not only regard regular ‘offline’ platform work,
such as taxi services, or food delivery. It also concerns work that is done completely ‘online’. Workers from all over the world can be in direct competition with each other.
Such cross-border challenges call for cross-border dialogue to avoid a race to the bottom. Therefore, I hope that digitalization and its international consequences will continue to be on the agenda of the G20.
The second point I would like to address is the future of hybrid work.
The pandemic has accelerated not only the transition to a more digital economy, but also the trend towards structural hybrid working. Before the COVID-outbreak, employees in the Netherlands were working from home for just over 6 hours a week on average.
Today, it has become the norm for millions of workers. The number of workers that is expecting to work from home more regularly has almost doubled. It is likely that flexible working arrangements are here to stay.
With the perspective of more structural hybrid working, we need to ask ourselves questions like:
- how do we keep the good elements of hybrid working,
- how does hybrid working effect for example mobility, housing, and working conditions?
To answer these questions we decided to consult our tripartite Socio Economic Council, to provide us with a broad outlook on the future of hybrid working.
With their advice, we intend to launch a roadmap on the future of hybrid working in the autumn of this year.
My third and last point is about the importance of lifelong learning.
We have discussed this in the joint meeting on Monday with our ministers of Education, but it is important enough to repeat it here.
With a labour market constantly and rapidly changing, workers must be able to respond to these changes.
As I have explained yesterday: I want to make it everyone’s right. By introducing a yearly personal learning and developing budget in 2022, available for all adults in The Netherlands, no matter if you are currently working or not.
This way we want to foster inclusiveness and participation in the labour market.
Talking about participation in the labour market, I would like to conclude by emphasizing the need to address the persistent gender inequality, in the Netherlands and around the world. Women are another vulnerable group highly affected by the pandemic. We therefore very much welcomed the initiative of the Presidency to present a Roadmap Towards and Beyond the Brisbane Target.
In closing, let me say this.
In the coming years, technological developments will only continue to accelerate, and thus continue to influence our labour market. I therefore hope the G20 will continue the discussion on ways and means to ensure that economic and technological developments will truly benefit everyone – not just a few.
Thank you.