oa Trends in de kwaliteit van de arbeid in Nederland en Europa

Trends in the quality of work in the Netherlands and Europe

This paper presents trends in the quality of work in the Netherlands, and compared these with Europe. Globalisation, technological innovation and a labour market shift towards the service sectors are hypothesized to be main drivers of these trends. An increase of work intensification, an expected trait of globalisation, is seen in Europe but not in the Netherlands (anymore). The Netherlands was leading in work pressure up till 2000 but rates average on this since then. In addition, there has been an increase in temporary contracts since the nineties, and a recent decrease in job security in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, possibly as an effect of the increase of the service sectors, physical and environmental risks at work, the number of working hours and shift work remained the same or slightly decreased. Social support by supervisors and co-workers is high and recently showed further increase. Dutch employees are increasingly using the computer and are teleworking. Computer work and teleworking are done much more often in the Netherlands then in Europe as a whole. In the Netherlands computer work is associated with a good quality of work, although the percentage of employees at risk for musculoskeletal problems is increasing because of a steady rise in employees working at the computer for 4-6 or more hours a day. The quality of work in the Netherlands is considerably higher than the European average. An exception is work-related violence and harassment, which is relatively high in the Netherlands with its large service economy and client contacts. At the European level physical violence is increasing, but recent Dutch data do not show an increase in work-related violence and harassment.