Europe's changing labor landscape - should Europeans work more? | Business Beyond
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- Опубликовано: 9 май 2024
- The labor landscape has changed in some of Europe's wealthiest countries. More people are working - but for fewer hours on average. With a generation of workers now heading for the exits, governments and employers are trying to make working more more attractive. Can they succeed?
00:00 Europe's capital of part-time work
01:20 A changing labor landscape
03:36 One-and-a-half earner household
05:01 Workforces are shrinking
08:58 More than working moms
11:04 'Part-time' -- a four-letter word?
12:40 Finding those extra hours
13:25 Not just about money
15:25 Whose needs?
#PartTimeJob #Europe #Labor
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I can work 250 hours a month and I still won't be able to afford a house in 20-30 years. What's the point any more?
you are doing something wrong...
Yeah living in Croatia@@michalkosmita5194
@@Philipmccrevvas its always the same question What do your do !!!
@@Philipmccrevvas your wrong even now... huge regional differences... where 1200 bucks still worth something, you would not want to live there probably... commenter is most likely from the eastern side and boy is he right! We don't get a everything we need on credit around here.
Making someone richer
People have fought like 2 centuries to decrease working hours, and now we need to work more with all this technology around us? We live in strange times indeed...
make more babies then
@blankspace1126 or more immigrants from countries who can't feed their own people...
That is what i was thinking. Why even considering working more if we on the edge or even in the middle of a transition where AI would automate most of our jobs. (like they promise)
There is just a weird dis-connect here.
@@blankspace1126braindead
@@blankspace1126to make more babies, you need to have money to raise them, otherwise they will become uneducated, jobless and probably homeless for which working people will be paying with their taxes.
I used to work for a German company, I live in Eastern EU. My German colleagues were earning much better than me, min.2x my salary. Meanwhile, I could never get a raise, my manager was always telling me that we "need a good business reason for it". After some time I felt like a 2nd class employee. So I did quiet quitting and left the company eventually. Working hard full time has no sense if they are not fair with you.
This is practically the story of my brother in law who used to work for Peri, German corporation, in Poland. I imagine these stories repeat a lot!!
"Quiet quitting" is a term they invented to guilt and shame us into accepting being exploited.
To be fair, cost of living in germany is also more.
@@TheIndianWoman100 that's true, but cosmetics, food, petrol, utilities, etc are very similarly priced. Accomodation is much cheaper but on balance it still work out better for German employees.
@@TheIndianWoman100 yes, but if you compare e.g. Czechia with Germany - in recent years the difference of cost of life in those 2 countries is way less significant than the difference of salaries.
In an age where 90 % of the wealth of a country is concentrated in the hand of just a fews individuals dont go tell me to work more.
Not saying you're wrong! But the wealth disparity in ancient Rome was roughly the same, or arguably even worse - comparing Emperor Augustus Caesar to the average Roman citizen and comparing Elon or Jeff to the average American citizen - so this is to say the wealth disparity is not a new phenomenon in the world, but the changing attitudes towards work is somewhat new.
So comparing today, to a time where most of the work was done by litteral slaves is supposed to make us think what ?
Are you sure you want to go there ?
@@RichJRZ Yes, you can't expect educated people to work as slaves.
@@RichJRZ and this is relevant how?
@@RichJRZ This is a pointless argument.
Free time is priceless- once you experience it you don’t want to work 40 hrs a week- you realize you do not need money but time
some people get bored
Absolutly....
Agree! I am down to 4 days a week. Best thing I have done
Untill your 75 and complaining the retirement you built up is smaller then everyone elses. As a society we have grown spoiled and during our lifetimes a harsh reality check will come. But due to political reasons at that moment they porbably loot the pockets of the people who actually worked their buts off in favor of the ones who wanted "me time".
Tell that to countries with gdp per capita lower than 20k😂😂😂
'governments and employers are trying to make working more attractive.'
i have a wild idea...
I know what you're thinking, but ironically increasing wages might incentivise people to work less. Not everyone cares about getting rich. If you already have enough money to live comfortably, why would you work harder with a higher wage? I wouldn't! At some point free time becomes more valuable than hoarding more material wealth. What? Am I supposed to no-life it and work super hard so I can retire early? That would only delay the problem anyway. Or maybe buy a big house with room for all the children I never had time to have?
Economic growth is overrated.
@@fnorgen that may apply to the 20% of people already making a decent living. Most people dont fall into that bracket.
@@fnorgen I'd say the motivation from being paid what you're worth gives far bigger incentive to work hard than it takes away. Being paid too little is not a boost for motivation and morale either.
I think, for most people, wage is not so much about the material wealth (from a certain point onwards) but about the show of appreciation for the work they're doing. It's what motivates people to continue their career.
@@srccde it's so fun watching the wealthiest countries complaining about not getting paid enough. Vietnamese begs to differ.
@@blankspace1126 The living costs in these wealthy countries are usually *way* higher than in other countries. Yes, we complain about wages that, compared to vietnamese wages, are pretty high, but so are the costs of the things we have to afford with that wage.
That's why so many europeans emigrate to asian countries, e.g., Thailand. Their pensions are not high enough to live comfortably in their countries of origin but are, essentially, a fortune in other countries.
I work to live, not live to work. As long as I make enough to love comfortably, that's enough. I don't need to live fancy, just a nice home and the essentials is enough.
And that's not available in NL. You have overpriced, cold and moldy apartments, overpriced heating, overpriced daycare and heavy tax if you earn more.
@@bpunk9Definitely not, just go live somewhere else than the Randstad. I live a very comfortable life working part-time, owning a home, with good savings and additional pension funds
@@bpunk9blablabla. Netherlands is one of the best countries to live in.
"just a nice home"
working to live salary
Yeah bro, speak some more of your amazing wisdom
If you increase work-hours you will see the childbirth rate drop drastically like in south korea and japan. Without young people you can’t sustain pensions a generation from now and have far greater problems than just a workforce shortage.
Your birthrates are already almost as bad as Korea's and Japan's. This has been the case for decades, and obviously has little to do with working hours. Germany, which as the video pointed out has among the lowest working hours in the developed world, also has one of the lowest birthrates. The culprit is cultural, the prioritization of personal fulfillment at the expense of the responsiblities and sacrifices of parenthood. In other words, selfishness.
@@aint_just_whistlin_dixie
Birthrate:
Germany 1,46
South Korea 0,84
How are those comparable in any way ?
Just for comparison USA Birthrate is 1,64
@@aint_just_whistlin_dixie That would be true if we had everything else in life covered, but with barely enough income to support ourselves (and nowhere near enough buy a home to create a "nest") most of us can not afford to have kids.
Ah so it's because you lack money you can't have kids then?
Simple, encourage high levels of immigration that keeps wages low and corporate profits high, whilst simultaneously increasing demand for assets such as housing, increasing the value of the assets owned by corporate owners. Nice system!
Yeah let's just ignore every study that has shown that reducing to a 4 day week increased productivity, output and happiness. 🤷
Well duh. Can’t have a barely surviving wage slave workforce if you take care of them
How will the capitalist pigs extract our excess labour then!? Yachts aren’t cheap you know!
You are right but here the focus is on how the economy can still work if there is nobody around to do the work... If companies have to shut down, then you're gonna have a zero day work week...
@@MrStphch Having 4 workdays a week hardly means there isn't anybody around to do the work.
People in Asia are just laughing at French people who work 35h/week (I’m French). And now we talk about part-time. It’s ridiculous. Europe will not be able to compete against the USA and China if it goes this way.
Don’t be weak !
ok sure, we should work more, spend more, make more children, take care of said children and our retiring boomer parents... can we get 48 hours-long days and quadruple the wages?
This lazy puck must be French 😂
Capitalists disagree. They want 60 hour work weeks with 1/10th of your currwnt wage.
@timmy-wj2hc How much would I win if I bet you are absolutely unsuccessful in life in general. BTW I raised babies doesn't count.
@@timmy-wj2hc And paying more taxes in the process because we have earned to much, yeah nice try capitalists lol..
But they wouldnt accept it for themselves @timmy-wj2hc
Begin by closing the pay gap between top management and the workforce. Why work for peanuts when you see the bosses wine and dine and driving expensive cars. Why submit yourself to corporate rules and regulations, while being treated as an entity with a number.
tell me you havent work as a manager without telling me you havent work as a manager
@@archmad, when they said "Top Management" (probably CEO, CFO, etc.) they were thinking of a different type of manager than the 'Middle Management' you might be thinking of.
Of course I'm just making an inference from just a few words.
when you have a 50 billion dollar company Spotify CEO (which is from Sweden what a surprise) complaining about the "rich", yeah Europe is doing absolutely fine.
Hum mate those guys who own the businesses are the ones taking all the risk…there is no such thing guaranteed money in fact most and I mean most businesses that start ended failing and those who don’t can still earn very little but not every company is an Apple…you feel you can have a business than go ahead and do it you’ll find it to be extremely more stressful and tiring than having a 9-5 job. You know whats easier simply investing in stock market but as with everything it’s is not anywhere close to guaranteed money you guys asking to receive the same as the owner is laughable the owner created the business took and still takes all the risk money and legal wise and you come in and say that you should deserve the same cause you got a 9-5 spot at my company??? Please go ahead and do the same make your business and get some reality check. You are infected with ideas of communism.
You suggesting communism mate.
Only rich countries can afford part time. Eastern European remote teams grind like there's no tomorrow for 1000 Euro and less, doing the work of their French and German colleagues who earn a lot more and have more free time. Corporate offices around here are reffered to as burnout factories.
Same is with the guys in India etc making the jeans for that rich Eastern European workers and the list goes on.
Do you think that East European love "grinding"? It is like in the article I once read: Stat show, that Poles prefer small apartments, old cars and overtime hours :)
It is very simple, in East Europe everything cost the same (even housing nowadays...) but you earn 50% of that in West. What choice do we have? You work or you live under the bridge (in Poland social security is about 300 Euro/month)
@@martin_93 we basically became colonies of rich western countries... we produce their cars, their electronics, their clothes but we only get a fraction of their salary
@@pepik121 What choice do we have? We must develop our own companies, be creative and innovative, work smarter, and harder. We have good fundamentals (education, infrastructure etc.) now we have to use them. Also, we dont have 'west problems' yet, like mass migration related crimes or drugs (like in USA fentanyl crisis)
It is still better to be "colonies of west" than part of russian/china world. We have been there, it was disaster.
When looking at stats, we are actually doing quite good, Poland, Czech Republic and Baltic Countries are leading in GDP per capita grow, when you mark 1990 as starting point. Look at Ukraine - in 1992 gdp per capita 3200 $, in 2018...3100$. Meanwhile Poland 5100$ -> 16 600 more than 3x. Estonia 6,500$-> 20000$.
It is just not possible to be at the same economy level as west, when in 1990 we had litereally nothing there, I myself remember as a kid eating bread with sugar for breafest... . I hope, if we avoid mistakes and will work as we we have worked for last 40 years, we will get them, sooner or later, but we will.
I'm one of those people, I work with c level in corporate strategy in the literal infrastructure that holds my company together, I earn 1250€ before taxes and I'm paid less than half the average hourly wage of company...All because I'm from tomato Europe
90% of us work 5 out of 7 days. "should Europeans work more?" is insulting since we're basically salves already.
Well to be fair, they did day that 50% of employees in Netherlands are part time. They also admitted throwing 28-32 hr workers into this category (which is technically part-time, but not half-time), but even so there's theoretical room to push back for everyone working 40hrs/w. So no, thry don't propose working 6 days a week and they don't propose everyone to increase their work hours.
Wether it's a good idea or not, that's a completely different question.
Nah Americans work more
No, we should be paid more. And cost of living should be less.
That's laughable.
Please tell me how you achieve that, without breaking the bank.
@@IMGreg.. I KNOW! It's ridiculous to even think people that should be paid enough to live decently; it's not like during the last 30 years wages stagnated while productivity has been increasing steadily... right? We should all sacrifice our lives for the economy, otherwise how are our overlords going to afford their new yachts? Workers are so selfish. 🥲
That's prima facie impossible
@@IMGreg.. Taxing the rich
@@Nermalton77
Okay.
You successfully driven out the most rich people of the countries who brought as many of their assets with them…
Now what?
Low wage has made people lazy. Since people realized that they will never own a house or a financially stable life to raise a family in, they decided to become lazy and just enjoy the moment. People will only work hard if there is a reward at the end.
Excuse me, but people living on low wages work up to 12 hours per day. What are you on about.
I would refute your argument that people on low wages have become lazy, that's untrue. What has happened is people on low wages realise their contribution isn't valued and their modest ambition of owning their own homes and having families are never going to be realised, so why bother? That's when they live in the moment because there's nothing to aim for. Governments have created a generation of people who no longer give a damn.
@@mypointofview1111in italy in the last 20 years wages have gone down by 2%... imagine if they kept going up like other eu countries
not lazy. realistic. feudalism like working conditions are not worth it and such low payment and high living cost in one of the richest countries in the world is pathetic and everyone that thinks its not wealth concentration and too much bureaucracy lost it yea.
so true
The government wants both parents to work 40h a week, but they also laugh in our faces when we demand free childcare ...
Given technological advancements over the past decades, Europeans should actually be working less. Work is getting done far more efficiently than it ever has, and increasing degrees of automation should pave the way for fewer work hours. Calling for more hours whilst maintaining what are effectively slave wages because of older people leaving the workforce shows that neither governments nor employers care for the well-being of the regular people.
Work is done far more efficiently than it ever has, but it's not Europeans doing work more efficiently, it's those Europe runs trade deficit with that's doing work more efficiently.
Well said, the question is having the power to bring this about. Organised labour must step up
vlhc4642 Like who? Lol no silly it’s because of advancing technology, unfortunately wages haven’t quite kept up with the rise in productivity.
@@juancarlosalonso5664 Like the country you run half a trillion trade deficit with, the country with 2x more robots per worker than Europe, that's who.
European wages are simply moving toward the fair amount that Europeans deserve for their output.
@@vlhc4642It's not the Germans (Germany: pop 85m, 3rd largest economy) that need to work more; it's the Japanese (Japan: pop 125m, 4th largest economy) and the Chinese that need to work less, but more productively and efficiently.
In Europe, there's a growing sense of neglect towards the younger generation. They face lower salaries, longer work hours, and increased responsibilities while witnessing a surge in billionaires, particularly in countries like Germany.
The housing market adds to their woes, as property prices soar, making it difficult to afford homes, let alone start families. To compensate, cheap labor from abroad is often favored, leading to frustration among the youth, who feel betrayed.
People aren't inherently racist, but this frustration arises when governments prioritize external labor over addressing domestic issues. It's high time politicians acknowledge and tackle these pressing concerns rather than resorting to distractions. The younger generation deserves meaningful change.
Housing market alone is enough to shape economic desicion. You basically pay your whole life for it, it's the biggest expense ever. And lack of square meters is the most significant factor affecting decision to have children (at least here data shows it). But the thing is solving house crisis is not straightforward politically. Current homeowners will see their property decline in value once you start flloding the market with affordable housing so they'll vote against any politian who mentions such plans.
it is hard to believe things could be even worse that they already were in my generation when i was young, and I am 50 now. No one will give it to us, but we can become meaningfuly changed.
People aren't inherently racist? British people imposed economic sanctions on itself just to "regulate migration" which wasn't really a Issue since they weren't part of schengen. Basically you can imagine the UK as a the average racist old man that cut one of his limbs after speaing to an Indian.
I don't experience any asks for longer working hours, but the cost of living and housing compared to saleries today is certainly staggering. Guess I'll buy my first home when I'm 45.
@@alexanderlinderson2655 At least people are more conscious about what is happening and start to discuss this issues. The state entertains people with what doesn't matter. Our generation needs to defend also their interests.
It is so damn simple.
Reduce tax on labor, increase tax on wealth/assets.
Of course the lobbies and the politically powerful will fight against this - and exactly that proves the necessity.
If you increase tax on asset, the middle-class asset owners will suffer seriously. What do you gonna do about them?
@@koushikdas1992when he mentions "tax the wealth/asset" I don't think he meant the average person with a small house and a dog. It's more about those with several properties, etc.
@@fernandodesouza4248 , what about start-up businesses who want to grow? Are you going to stop them innovating by giving them a flat 70% tax rate on them??? And Europeans still wonder why there isn't Europe's version of Facebook, ChatGPT, Tesla, BYD, Capcom etc...
Most people with multiple properties are renting them and if they increase tax on those , landlords either need to increase the rent or sell the houses which will create another problem with renting.
@@sarash5061 Sounds like a good idea - make it more expensive for landlords, they sell, and normal people can afford to buy their own home.
When a business person say: "Oh, we have 200k open positions and we can't fill out because people are lazy and don't want to work..." I hear: "Oh, so hard to find 200k slaves nowadays, willing to work until death, doing meaningless stuff nothing..."
Sometimes the job seeking place is not even real. It's just here because it's required by the law 🙄🙄🙄
The rich business owners always play the victim role
No we don't, if anything we work too much.
Id suggest you start lookinv around for extra employment. I do not think europe will ever have the luxuries it previously did. Get used to longer hours, an euro that wont go as far, and less holidays and less capacity to spend on trivialities.
@@LukeThomasPerth What trivialities?
Without constant immigrant entry into the economy and society the average person in the EU would have to work atleast for another 4 years after retirement to be able to make the same kind of money and use the same public systems & etc
God you people are so lazy
XD Germany 1350 working hours per year, poland 1800
The principal of the primary school, said it, but none oaid attention. "The salary is bad".
There is not a labor shirtage, there is a copensation sortage. Pay better and more people will be interested to work.
Childcare daycare costs are also INSANE in the netherlands, if you want to solve the demographic issue this needs to be dealt with. Thousands of euros of care for a single month in costs - NO WONDER people are working part time. It saves more money to look after the kid yourself.
insane in the netherlands? no its not. we get help from the government to pay for it. and in 2027 they want to make it free.
Wanneer je werkt of studeert heb je recht op kinderopvangtoeslag. De belastingdienst vergoedt in de meeste gevallen tussen de 33% tot wel 96% van het maximum vastgestelde uurtarief! In 2024 is dit € 10,25 voor het kinderdagverblijf en € 9,12 voor de BSO.
De maximale vergoedingen per uur worden: voor de dagopvang € 9,12; voor de buitenschoolse opvang € 7,85; voor de gastouderopvang € 6,85.
Wat kinderopvang precies kost, verschilt per gezin en per situatie. Per uur betaal je tussen de €5 en de €10, maar in Nederland hebben de meeste ouders recht op kinderopvangtoeslag. Hoeveel toeslag je krijgt en hoeveel je dus uiteindelijk zelf voor de kinderopvang betaalt, hangt af van meerdere factoren
both are from 2023. its not that expensive over here. that last one just explains how it works. so no we get help with everything when it comes to things like this. why do you think we still have one of the best social systems in europe? yes the netherlands is expensive i am not going to deny that. and yes we are among the most expensive countries in the EU thats also a fact. but we get lots of help from the government with things like this more then other countries. so no its not expensive its pretty decent.
And it also ensures your kid is properly brought up and not indoctrinated.
same issue here in the usa, some parents spend $1500 to $2000 a month for childcare, then our government wonders why young people aren't having any kids...everything too expensive at the moment and having a kid is a choice, so most decide to focus on paying for their bills. Or if parents have kiddos, you see some of them stay home to take care of the child.
@@oldsenpai4337 I feel it is the consequence of hyper-capitalism. The economy tries to squeeze every drop of "productivity" out of people whilst maximizing profits. If we look at Norway ( I have also lived there for 8 years) their society is FAR more balanced. Salaries are normalized across the board, but everybody gets paid very well. Taxes are high, also for corporations but it means people have an incredible work life balance and childcare is virtually free...
They seem to think caring for someone at home is not 'work' ...
The video missed a key point for The Netherlands - Taxes. Working 40 hours incurs hefty taxes, limiting state support eligibility, and thus need to pay more from the hard-earned money. Opting for a 32/30-hour week minimizes taxes, maintains income, and ensures access to essential government aid, like for example child, rental support. It challenges the notion that more work means less money - and less work means more money, a perspective overlooked in the video.
It’s literally one of the sections: 4:08
same for Switerland, at least in some cantons...
Exactly that! An engineer with University degree loses 50% of his salary on taxes. So does a gardener, an electrician, daycare... So as a young engineer it's financially more interesting to work 30 hours and do this yourself because you save these taxes on salary 2x times. This is contraproductive for the countries GBP and results in lower employment rates.
@@automofiel Thats not how taxes work. taxes work like buckets so only the amount over the bucket you pay tax for. If your effective tax rate is 50% you have so much income that you don't need money anymore (think milions plus).
There are some very good points said here: I work full time with over hours in a well paid profession. I earn above average and as a single person still cannot see how I could ever buy my own apartment. I know there are many people like me. Our salaries don’t incentivize work.
paying 60% of your income in Sweden certainly help
Back then, life was so affordable that one man was enough to provide the a whole family with 2 kids, and can afford buying a house, a car, and annual holidays. Nowadays, the man and woman full time salary is barely able to afford to support a family with 1 kid.
In west. For the last years underdeveloped countries developed a lot, so you now have to share resources and products with 8 billion people around the globe.
@@user-qx4zc3ph2m Maybe it's because Europe actually has not innovated whatsoever for DECADES that once kept their monopoly over the high end? Driving out useless people (such as nowadays Europe) seems like a pretty FEATURE of creative destruction.
I can explain this very easy, when tax is >50% instead of 10% both people need to work.
@@eightsprites Usa income Tax rate in 1950-1970 was 70%
You mean for the west. Us in developing countries needed two people to work to have a financially stable life, a lot also had to be separated from their families, typically mothers, so they can work as domestic help and nurses. Now things have gradually equalised in terms of the needed educational attainment and skill, further we have far bigger consumer markets.
Let me make this clear for you. No amound of money is going to be worth the amount of time (life) you sold. When you're 85 years old, dying from nothing at all, how much would you pay for a year of being in your 30's? So you can hike, run, live.
Our time is our most valuable asset, and no amound of money is really worth it, so demand as much money as you can, for the least amount of time possivle. Governments and big business can pay it, they just dont want to.
I fear its too late for my fellow americans, theyre too weak to hit the streets, theyve become complacent, and scared, and subjectated.
Europe, hold the line, prove to the world that humans deserve better.
Absolutely!!!
No way, 40 hours is already enough for me.
40 hours is more than I care to sell.
I have 40 hours week but the last 2 hours in a day I can't work at all
40 hours is part time
@@winnietheblue3633 tough boy
@dbs5212 no no , he's saying categorically 40 hours is considered part time. 42 hours a week is full-time.
In Bulgaria a big part of the labour shortage is that most positions, including fully computer-based ones want you to go to the office in person. During the lock-down a lot of companies started hiring people to work remotely, even those who lived in a village hundreds of kilometres away from their office.
This boosted productivity and improved a lot of lives. Those who could barely find a good job in one of the remote regions now could work for a company based in the capital and have little to no expenses living in a small town or village.
And you know what happened then? Companies tried to argue that because they are not living in the capital region, their salary should be based on the region they live in, not what the company actually is offering to all employees on similar positions. This was quickly quashed as being illegal but the companies will always try to cut their costs at the expense of their workforce.
How about we first change that culture and companies start actually caring for their workers? And they try not only to keep them, but improve and cherish them if they are doing their work fine.
Good point
It's such nonsense that remote working improves productivity. There is no proof for it. There is proof it reduces solidarity amongst colleagues and hinders the bond with the employer.
Although, it is true that people need to be able to afford housing in the area of the company if they are hired to work at a company location. So it means that you need to increase their pay, meaning everyone in other regions gets less.
This wont happen under neoliberalism
People would work more if there was certainty that you could build wealth enough to buy a house or a car or sustain a household like in past times. Now people value more short term stuff like trips because everything else feels out of reach.
Because house IS out of reach. For example a house near Berlin costs about a Million Euro, maybe 800k if you are lucky. How on earth can a working person buy it? This is around 20 years of salary if you put every earned cent in savings.
@@stanislavkindiakov6334you have to outright buy the house?
@@KEMough at least to have first downpayment and pay it back fully before retirement.
@@KEMoughMaybe not everyone wants to get a loan from a bank for 20-25 years for a house...
@@rvs_rogue7049 if you look there was a question mark. I wasn’t asking you either
How is it possible to work longer when you have manage kids where after school care stops at 4pm.
Everything is so costly that you cannot afford external help. Educated engineer/ Dr need to spend max time in clearing/ fixing and maintaining home
Indeed it’s a good point.
High taxes, especially progressive tax system, and bureaucracy removes the option of value maximization by splitting such responsibilities.
Any cleaner will make the cleaning process faster and with better quality, while qualified engineer could spend his time on main work value creation.
It’s pretty easy to calculate the combined value for an economy and mutual wealth gaining.
For the rich you are nothing more then a slave !
@@marcozegikniet9301 it's not only about slave.
No body stopping from becoming rich
Thanks, we are good. There is more than enough money and stuff to go around for everybody. The only problem is unfair and uneven distribution.
Exactly.
I wouldn't say it's the only problem, consumerism is also an issue. If we were more frugal we would need to produce less, and therefore work less. Although I agree that distribution is another key issue.
This is not about making people who already work 40h to work more, the problem is to motivate people living on social benefits working 24h per week instead of sucking everything out of the middle class already working 40h and paying full price of housing and daycare + importing more cheap labor from abroad.
@@juancarlosalonso5664Viva Franco Viva
You can only push part time workers to become full time so much. The work they do at home care taking is actually economic contribution, and if they left to work at a firm, they will need to find someone else to provide service they used to provide themselves.
What caretaking at home? They don’t have kids.
@@brotherbig4651 oh that's even better. these feminists' dream are really coming true.
@@blankspace1126
Is that such a bad thing? 40 odd years ago it was normal for women to stay at home and look after their children. Not farm them out to strangers. Men earned enough to provide for a family, pay the mortgage and have holidays and you didn't need to be rich to do that. Now prices have risen so much that both parents have to work and are lucky if they manage the rent on accommodation never mind buy their own house. Life wasn't always so desperate as it is now. Children are better behaved and happier when they're brought up by either parents being home. There's less behavioural problems. Things like adhd or autism was unheard of 40-60 years ago. Children are medicated instead of being cared for by their mothers at home.
I’m Italian and work in Italy as an employee for 40h per week and I’ve been criticised for not working on Saturdays or longer hours!!! 🤣😂🤣
My cousin is a doctor and she works in an emergency room, she often works as double shift!!!
Just pay them more and they'll work more, most European have greatly lowered their ambitions or decided to not have kids, or are unemployed. If you pay more, that will definitely help them to also spend more and have bigger plans.
Says from the wealthiest countries in the world. Rising wages without actual improved productivity just means inflating living expense and backfire yourself 😂😂😂
@@blankspace1126 But you dont rise productivity with more workhours. On the contrary. Historicaly it was shown that workhour regulations helped to increase productivity and inovation. And Innovation was, what helped the productivity the most at least in the past. I guess with more freetime and greater motivation, you also have more time to think and educate yourself about the problems in life (and work), so more you get ambitioned to fix them. And of course, this don´t apply to every single working person, but it seems logical to me.
pay more work less..lol...ao European and other western mentality 😂
governments can start stealing more and more tax from working people, which will boost their lives. In some EU countries, tax rates on income are much too high.
@@brojo355 Talent is leaving NL because there is nothing to motivate you to stay here rather than to move to the US. In long term we'll be far behind the US in purchasing power, productivity and inovation.
Salaries are ridiculous compared to the costs, every future increase trickles down to 50% in net salary impact, so actually the country numbs you not to achieve more. At the same time lower classes have it comfortable by working less to keep sucking on social benefits and we keep importing more cheap labor inflating housing prices.
No, we should work much less. Automation and AI should take over most labour.
But if people are not working long enough then they have a plenty of time to control their government and that's why automation will actually never allow people to work less. Government will always find a way for people to work more than they should.
There are tons of jobs that will always require a human to do it
@@soundscape26which jobs?
@@default3740 Can you replace a nurse, a plumber, a lawyer or a firefighter with AI/automation? Or anything related to performative arts.
@@default3740Did jobs disappear when Tractors replaced farmers? Even Farmers were not replaced..
Happy you mentioned the tax consideration. I’m part time and although I wouldn’t mind working a bit more 54% of my additional earnings would go to the tax man. Big no!
but that's exactly what these socialist want: TAX THE RICH
The reason why there are so many open job positions is that when there are open jobs, employees can pick and choose their jobs, so employers have to compete for employers. Jobs that are stressful and strenuous and underpaid like health care or teaching will lose that competition. And the reason these jobs are underpaid is because salaries were dumped when there was a lack of jobs and employees had to compete for jobs.
It's ridiculous to demand from employees to increase their hours and move into unattractive jobs, just because some employers still haven't figured out that the times when they could exploit people because they had no other options are over.
Exactly. In my country I see open vacations by billion dollar companies that haven’t been filled for years. Then you check the salary for a job they are desperate to find someone for and it’s the legal minimum wage, meanwhile the job requirements are way above the average job. Yeah no thanks. Either raise the wage accordingly to the workload and stress the job requires or keep “desperately” looking for 10 more years.
That's not how things work in NL. There are too many people purposefully working less and staying under the threshold to keep receiving benefits. They have no incentive to work full time so we keep importing people.
If you are a student starting to work in your field, although your annual salary may have jumped from €25k to €50k, when adjusted with all benefits you now lost, as you're no longer eligible for welfare and with higher tax rate - the net benefit is only €5k. Also with €50k you cannot afford to even rent, let alone buy something in any of the 4 biggest cities.
Now teachers, policemen, healthcare workers fall right into this category - no benefits, yet unable to afford anything.
underrated comment@@bpunk9
NO!
Having this conversation and not talking about productivity seems like its really missing the mark.
More and more people also seem to complain about useless positions. I'm not sure whether the meeting structure has actually changed from before, but in office work lots of people complain about that. Maybe the whole office structure in itself, plus the tendency to work at large companies rather than small specialized ones, has made us less efficient.
Then there is mainly physical work that is even more important that actually requires people being there at a specific time rather than getting something done as quickly as possible (although it helps, but for example you would not want a doctor to rush an emergency surgery or a gardener to just remove all unhealthy trees instead of caring for them). In any case, people being overworked makes them more prone to mistakes, makes them more likely to waste time and makes them unhealthy.
I live in NL - the taxes are crazy high for people working full time, make these taxes lower to encourage more people to earn more... The current tax system incentivizes people to just scrape by because they don't want to end up in a higher tax bracket...also make it more difficult for people to mooch off the system. The Netherlands also has an imploding demographic trend, I think in part because people aren't properly compensated / can't afford basics like a house to live in anymore. Nobody wants to start a family without that certainty. (500,000 euro for a BASIC house in a city for context) Currently the government is plugging this demographic gap with a flood of new immigration... By 2050 the central bureau for statistics estimates 40% of the Netherlands (at the current rate) won't have a "dutch" background. This is only slapping ducttape on the problem and not fixing the systemic structural problem. Many people I know are not considering having children because of costs / work-life imbalance.
PREACH! It is exaclty this! And on top of demographic deterioration, it further deepens the housing crisis, productivity and innovation are decreasing, younger generations are hopeless, there is less motivation for education, quality of life is plummetting.
Yet - many employers and property owners reap the benefits of cheap labor and high rents and we just watch this go by.
Yes! You are exactly at the point, same situation in Germany. Only when you have a Director salary you have a chance to buy a basic house somewhere outside the city.
How do you solve the housing crisis? Lowering income taxes will only make it worse I think. Housing is a global problem in 50+ countries. None of these countries managed to find a solution.
I agree that the problem is structural. Where I disagree is on this notion that any local government has the power to fix these problems since they are deriving from a global economy, demographic issues and technological development.
Of course some things can be done, and they are, but for now the best fix on an individual level is find your way through this system and remind yourself that you live in a rich country and are still spoiled everything considered.
@@karstenmadsen9801 Because many houses in the Netherlands are bought up by companies, institutions, big hedge funds and wealthy investors. The rules of the game and playing field are not equal. It costs about 600,000 euro to buy a regular sized apartment in the city of Utrecht. This is abnormal. Reducing the tax burden on the working class would allow for greater income to purchase these houses. You may be correct though, this could be inflationary if there aren't additional rules put in place to prevent investment in housing. 'Finding my way through the system" will not magic 600,000 euro on my bank account sadly xD This means an entire generation is priced out of housing. It is one of the main reasons I believe the dutch birth rate is imploding. Who wants a child if they can't afford a home and are spending most of their income on rent? It is financially simply not possible any longer. You are indeed correct though, we are lucky to live where we do, yet that does not mean we cannot strive to make it better ;)
@@karstenmadsen9801the government should build cheap affordable Houses like after World War II simple houses
Lower the tax on 40hr workers to motivate the extra hours spent
but we have to tax the RICH
@@blankspace1126 , not if it means carrying on with our unsustainable low-fertility highly aging population while living in a welfare State.
If you give people more money through taxing the rich but those people with more money don't have children to sustain the welfare State, you are essentially just kicking the can down the road and leaving it for another politician to take more difficult unpopular decisions in the future.
@@blankspace1126That mentally will never get you RICH 🤑. Besides the rich already pay the majority of the taxes, provides work opertunerty that feeds families. Sure we can get rid of the rich, there by cut state tax income in more than half, at the same time getting very high unemployement, and starvation. Nations has tried this before. Communism hasnt worked great so far.
Where is the point of working 40hrs a week, if most people still can't afford to buy real estate later. If they want to choose happiness through working less, it's their choice. Politicians should assist in what people wish and thrive for - not putting stones or criticism in their way.
I used to do extra work hours... to fatten the government as 60% of this extra hours was retained in taxes. I did a deal with the company for each extra hour I do I got 2h15mn in return to add to holidays.
People in Amsterdam work part time because the cost of a babysitter - day care is crazy (around 1000 euros per month) all my colleagues with kids, kind of have to work part time. Otherwise the cost is too big(considering the taxes on two fulltime incomes)...
Also weirdly enough it is a bit expected by woman to be a day at home. I am Greek and my husband Dutch so I am used in a different way so I am working full time and not intending to go part time but he chose to work one day less witch was a surprise to people around us. Because it is the norm here that women work part time.
It is important to say my coworkers who work part time they are really effective on these 4 days and bring results-meet all their targets. I think people here have a good balance and it is important to have this choice of part time. If they want people to work more then we need better daycare system that supports the families.
As a guy living in Asia, this video makes The Netherlands look like a paradise.
You're welcome to immigrate here! We will receive you with open arms.
It is a Paradise, but you live warm and have good food. Also a paradise 👍😎
For me, it is the Dutch women that make the Netherlands look like paradise.
Yeah, NO. It's actually mostly only people with rich parents who inherited homes who can afford to work less hours or - people sucking heavily on welfare, opting to work less not to make too much money to have their benefits cut. The rest of us struggle financially if we decide to stay one day per week at home with the kid (or pay extra 500+€ for those 4 days in a single month).
Netherlands is by far the most densely populated country in Europe. Many countries are basically empty compared to places like Korea.
at 12:00 "if they did work full time then they could afford that house"
Are you insane? if 8 hours more work each week resulted in the possibility to afford a home, noone would work part time. it's not that simple!
That's not all she said. In the next sentence she literally says it's not possible. You're saying the exact same thing as her: if working 8 hours more would lead to the possibility to buy a house, people would, but it's not possible.
I was told all this technology will make us work less for more. Not more for less
I am self employed and honestly I used to work even 55 hours a week but with the progressive tax system in France it doesn't worth it. I gain slightly less if i put in 40 hours so you do the math. This is also why we have shortages in almost every economic sector and you have to wait in line everywhere.
Main EU issue is nothing to do with working more hours but lack of fair and appropriate taxation. I was watching a documentary which mentioned Hapag-Lloyd paying tax rate of 0.65% on billions of profit while a part time work on a grinding job pays 20 times or 30 times more tax than Hapag Lloyd and other multi national corporations.
Exactly my thoughts, feudalism at it's finest going on in the EU.
The lady pointed out the problem perfectly: If you can't meet real goals, no matter how much you work (housing), then the difference in income has no meaning. You have no aspirations, so you just go for survival, while working as little as possible. People in general wont work 10 extra hours a week, so they can buy a few more gadgets, or something superficial like that. Not once they are actual adults for the most part. But if they could meet an actual proper goal, like owning property, a lot of them would put that extra 10 hours in.
With high taxation… why work 10 extra hours if the state will take 50% of your earn money?
I am salaried. I don't get more money for more hrs. No point doing it.
When a house cost around 20-25 years of your salary it does not matter how many extra hours of work you put.
Maybe the people who own everything and have all the money should share it more with the rest of us rather than cracking the whip and squeezing our finances
true and instead what dw is doing is opinionating us into believing that working harder is the solution. they don't talk about these things in this video...
that's cute because Europe doesn't even have the biggest economy anymore and China now is larger than EU combined. Your so called "rich" doesn't even own everything imao.
Why ?
To keep the money to CEOs flowing while we can't even afford to have a birth rate of 2.1
To make Europe "more competitive" with the slave regions like Asia and America.
2024 working more so you might afford a house.... whats next ? 2090, work 14 hours so you can afford food ? I thought technological advancement improves output and quality
in 2090 you work 24 hours a day for one meal a week !
There is actual data from Sweden who tried introducing a 4 day workweek. The productivity per hour was way better in comparison to the 5 day workweek. It is not about the hours you are at work but how much work you do in the time you are working!
I don’t how it’s in other countries but in my country if you work more you pay bigger taxes. At one point of my life I was paying around 55% of taxes on my salary. So what’s the motivation to work more?
Belgie:)?
@@wojciechpiosik302Croatia, and VAT is 25% also.
It's always the same. Media/Corporations/Employers screeching that there's not enough employees and there's so much available work. Dozens of people apply, and only one gets the position. They will tell you there is a shortage of applicants just to get more of them so that they can choose the best one out of as many options as possible. They don't give a damn about the rest.
Who wants to work at all, let alone 40 hours, when a wage doesn't get you an appartment never mind a mortgage. People are stuk at their parents or in small social housing where they can't start a family. If you are forced to live frugally you might as well work 3 months a year and keep it at that.
sitting in front of PC 8 hrs a day is stressful. Why would u work for a company if u're rich?
It's so funny that Tais (sp idk) finished her masters, is developing her hobby which she quite explicitly says she has a goal of hopefully reshaping "into a sidegig"; meaning that she's developing her skillset and setting up an environment where she's becoming an entrepreneur on the SIDE but we're so focused on her logged hours at her firm and we don't really see that as anything but "of she's just having fun with her hobby".
Like we have no qualms considering people bunkering down in University for 7 years to hone their skills, but her ambition to become a professional illustrator is somehow narrated as bringing down Netherlands' work hours lol
Workforce shortage? Is that way people are finding it hard to get a job? They just don't want to pay for work anymore. They want free work.
There seems to be only shortage with lower paying jobs.
And right wingers love this mentality ! Get rid of minimum wages and workers benefits and it will even get better 🤣
These must be really Switzerland's problems, here in Poland 2 people may work full time, and still not be able to save anything apart from pulling from beginning to end of a month.
High taxes were not mentioned one time. I don't blame Europeans at all for not wanting to work more hours when half or more of their wages go to taxes, especially if they are a higher earner. IN the US I work 50-60 hours a week, but I at least get to keep over 70% of what I make, so working the long hours is worth it. I also agree that younger people having no ability to afford a house really kills any incentive to work harder. The system is broken and as Europe ages they will need more taxes to pay for their elderly retired population putting even more strain on young workings, many will rebel by refusing to work full time.
If you’re a drug dealer you get to keep 100% of what you make.
I think you're right about the cause. But I like my high eurotaxes and relaxed life.
@@Ikbeneengeitwhere do you live? In NL it can be only 'comfortable' for a couple with no kids. Starting a family pushes you to poverty with 2.000€ daycare and 2.000€ rent.
I just did my taxes. My total tax rate was 25%, that's social contributions + income tax. I'm in an E.U. country in Eastern Europe with 3 dependents. It's not that bad. The last year I worked in America I paid about 33% total tax rate as a single childless non-home owner.
What bugs me when hearing these ill-formed discussions about labor shortages is that almost always not a single word is said about earning and working conditions. So, there are labor shortages because people don't want to work more, despite "our low wages, high taxes, and toxic and corrupt corporate structure"
You can always trace it back to politicians taking way more than their fair share in taxes, everywhere in the world. While we continue to accept this, they will continue to take more.
Tax is not worth working hard for.
The effects of quite avoidance of salary rises vs cost of living slowly rising. People are tired, stressed, with no perspectives for owning a home and finaly they do not want kids. It is astounding this point of view has been not mentioned even for a second in this material. There are the consequences, not suddenly people are spoiled and want to live better. They want to breathe and have perspective for living (them and their children). If not, this what happens.
Here's a good place to start: in Germany, my overtime was taxed at 45%. Why would I work overtime to only get half pay when my check is taxed at 38% as tax class 1?
This IS the issue.
We are just taxed to heavily.
That’s all.
In Finland has 2 big grossery shop chains and mostly they give workers just 30 hours a week even most of the workers would want to work more. Reason is flexibility to the company. If they need more workforce for some reason almost everyone has 7.5 "normal hours" to be used in hours notice. They just call "we need you now in here". Same with they restaurant and hotel chains.
In Bavaria, primary schools (first four years) is until 11:30-12:15. Getting a place in an afterschool care is very hard. So maybe there is a background in the phrase “working part-time is choice”, maybe that choice is not so voluntary. Now the ministers want to change the taxation rules to make it even less attractive to work part-time. Obviously, there’s a distinction between perception and reality.
I work for an American company. They always act very disappointed when the employee survey tells them that pple are not satisfied with the work-life balance. But they will schedule meetings til 6:30 PM nevertheless. I will not work more.
You can't get rich with working more in Germany. The more I work overtime, the higher my tax ratio is. Contrary to Australia, I don't get any penalty rate for any time over my 40 h / Week. If I work 50 h, those 10 h only make less than 60 % in net payment.
Most reasons and the solutions were put on the table i this episode.
- childcare
- income taxes
- work to live, instead of live to work.
Maybe taking a deeper look at Luxembourg in a future episode would be a good one. New government policies with free childcare until late hours (and even during the night for those who work shifts), lower income taxes, etc. A lot of people still work part-time though. But has anything changed in the past decade? What is their experience?
All the problems in our labor market could be solved with higher wages and lower housing prices. My generation, the millennials, are getting screwed because our parents could afford much more on one salary than we can. Even my partner and I, who both have college degrees, cannot compete with our parents who could afford a home, and the same goes for our grandparents.
Jim Rohn says, “Work harder on yourself than you do on your job!” Why? Because “when you work hard on your job you can make a living. When you work hard on yourself, you can make a fortune”.
In our current rigged system we have monopoly's you cannot compete with ! That's why so many businesses go out of busines !
Why do so many people not understand that making more money does NOT increase the chance of affording a house? You see, in a supply limited market like that of housing, the prices will go all the way up to what people can afford. So if everyone makes more money, the prices at least go up the same ratio.
Another problem is that the more you work and make more money the more taxes you pay, so there is no incentive to work more.
I think what is missed here is the role advancing technology will play. Sooner rather than later people we have no choice but to work less hrs
That is wishful thinking. Remember, those technologies are a part of capital and capital owners will want to capture as much of the added value as possible from these technologies... by removing the workers from the equation.
@@looseycanonLike, how would they? If everyone is poor, no one will buy the products of their company.
@@debasishraychawdhuriThe problem is, wages only determine (in part) consumption. There are four factors in GDP and conversely four different customer basis a company can concentrate on. Consumption is the people and to some degree other businesses. Let's say that is dead, there are still investments, eg. pivot to businesses and produce capital goods and kick the can down the line. Then there is government, which could either print money or tax people more and finally, they could begin to produce strictly for exports...
Majority of people do not work for pleasure, but work to pay a living, if a company has issues finding the right skilled people than that company is not paying its workforce enoph. if the pay is high than people will shift to that paycheck for the same job in a other company.
There isn't a labor shortage. There is a good-salary shortage and housing shortage. Why would people work for a salary that doesn't even allow them to live? In German cities, you'd need about 2.700€ (3*900€ warm) net income to cover rent for a small apartment and to be able to pay for basic needs. This means that you need a gross salary of about 4.290€. Meanwhile, the median gross salary in Germany was around 3.700€ in 2023. And no, you can't just easily move to a smaller city or the countryside to avoid this. It's not that cheaper to rent there, especially considering that you'll likely earn way less too.
Support those who work more and the problem is solved.
The world kind of needs to slow down
I've just returned from a journey to Peru. At Paris CDG it took two employees to board all the passengers on our flight to Lima, while for the return flight in Lima the same job was done by at least 9 employees (I haven't seen the end of the line but imagine there might have been an employee or two more..). Same story with most stores - five employees in Peru running after one client in a small drugstore vs. two, tops three employees per shift at a regular Rossmann. My point is, in the whole discussion on working hours we should not forget what the employee indeed manages to do. It's not only hours that count..
It’s partly because the pension age is 70. How will you make it to that age in good health when working non-stop? It also means we enjoy the moment now, and travel/vacation/do our hobbies now because we are more aware there might be no time left after we leave the work force. Also, the high taxes on additional hours and the extremely high cost for child care makes it not worth it for people who have kids. And they also cannot depend on their parents for child care, because their parents are working until 70. There is no other way than for some people to work less than fulltime.
For many decades we have been told that the market regulates everything. If you are not well educated and there are millions of unemployed people, then you have to limit yourself. Now it's the other way around, but non-performance income is still taxed significantly less than gainful employment. In Germany, for example, around 500 billion euros are inherited every year, but inheritance tax contributes less than 2% to the budget. For a long time, wealth is no longer earned, but inherited.
I would work more if i got double the pay. At this rate my free time is just worth more than my work time.
More hours dont equal more productivity. Worked with a japanese company before. They did the same amount or less of work in 12 hours as we germans in 8. It is a more a question of efficiency than of duration. We need to rethink the concept of productivity.
In Finland we are told we should work more hours. While government whines about there being too many unemployed people... and government whines that there is . And at the same time health officials are warning about burnouts, lack of rest and recover, and dropping birth rates... all mean while cost of living and housing is going up. Oh and I keep getting told that I can't be paid more because companies can't afford it, but at the same time the wealthiest 10% of society is growing wealthier and stock markets keep going up. How can there be too much unemployment, not enough workers and stagnant pay?
The 8 hour work day is a relic of the past. I hear a lot about shortages but nothing about wage increases and flexible work schedules. Why not have 2 people work 4 hours instead of 1 for 8? Laws and policies need to change
I studied in Germany and working in Netherlands now in a firm which operates in both countries . What Germany can do here is "" increase working hours for students at least for indians and Chinese " . that will benefit everyone.
so Germany can not even sustain their workforce on their own anyway
😅
my Life became 24/7 work this year and I love it so far, I have been lazy before and now I cant stop thinking about work even when I rest and picture of tomorrow are becoming better everyday
If Governments want people to increase the number of hours they work it is quite easy.
If they want people to work more than 32 hours per week just do not charge taxes and national insurance on any hours worked above that.
I find it very ironic that we can see our cancellor Karl Nehammer in this video, right next to labour shortages in the health sector. His Party, the ÖVP, has been cutting budgets for the health sector for years, reducing salaries and number of open positions as a consequence. Meanwhile, the ÖVP has blatantly used tax Euros to host party events. This retoric is two faced.
This is what happens when you progressively tax people. My last € is split almost 50/50 with the government:)) why bother. I can work 10 hours less and I only lose the money for 5
I don't understand what the probem is ?
The money is the same.
You work part-time you get less money than full-time.
As an employer, if want the full coverage of your schedule and you have part-time employers, just diversify your employee types.
It's like in restaurants and stores.
And as an employer if you make a ton of money, just pay your employes.
You need a reason to work full-time. As a conscious consumer with rather good job perspectives I don't know, what I should grind for. There's nothing so valuable to me than free time. I don't want to trade my precious time to mindlessly buy useless stuff to clutter my home.
Yet, the interesting part is, that even if we generally reduce the work hours per week, we're getting more and more exhausted (I feel included in that)
Perhaps the reduction in the workforce due to the ongoing demographic transition will coincide with the rise of AI, which will increase output per hour worked, thereby filling the gap.
That's exactly the inevitability that nobody is talking about.
There are already humanoid robots walking and putting boxes in shelves with ChatGPT LLM models.
There’s already fully autonomous fast food restaurants in the US.. but then there’s opportunities to code and maintain said machinery.. just like with every new technology. Doors open and close.
@@Siranoxz On the other hand, we bring in a lot of tax from working humans, not working humanoids. Which at least as it works today, means that the tax would just be similar to that on capital. Which always is lower then for work. We need to eventually shift the taxing system.
Not only that, the job loss due to AI will hit us much faster than people will leave the workforce. On the other hand we will have way too few people who can work with and on AI, but the idea that millions of people will simply switch from menial labor/low-skilled service to the complex jobs required to enable the AI transformation is ridiculous.
@@razorburn7745 Yep, that's the history of technical progress to date!
40 hours per week in winter is still too much.
problem of the analysis is the assumption that more hours equals more work done, I can give several examples of projects I run in Germany the team managed in days to produce work that was quoted outside EU to take weeks. Expanding hours a day will not in proportion increase work done, especially not on intellect driven work. As society its up to the voters to decide how policies should be crafted.
The problem in NL is many layers of society opt to work less to keep their salaries under the threshold allowing them to keep social benefits (housing, healthcare, daycare). At the same time we are importing workers to make up for the deficit which further inflate hosuing prices and stretch healthcare and education. Also with such high taxes and loss of benefits there is very little to motivate you to make more effort.
Just make daycare more affordable and put incentives to earn more and productivity would grow.