A tight labour market should be a mobile one. Employers are short of people and pay more. Yet fewer Dutch employees have changed employer since 2022. And those who do mostly give up security: 85% start the new job on a flexible contract. That is the finding of IPMERC research on figures from CBS, the Dutch statistics office, and De Nederlandsche Bank.
Fewer switches, right now
In 2025 CBS counted 1.27 million changes of employer, 15.9 per 100 employees. In 2022 there were 1.45 million, 18.9 per 100. In the first half of 2026 the pace is 15.5. DNB finds the same level in fifteen years of register data, an average of 16.7% a year. The central bank calls the drop after 2022 striking, because the market was exceptionally tight at the time.
Three in four permanent switchers start flexible again
Of the 444,000 switches by people on a permanent contract in 2025, 109,000 ended in a new permanent contract. That is 25%, down from 31% in 2019. The other 335,000 started at the new employer on a temporary or flexible contract.
That partly explains why permanent employees move less. Their switching rate fell from 10.2 per 100 in 2022 to 8.1 in 2025. A permanent contract comes with built-up rights and dismissal protection. The older someone is, the more that weighs: an employee over 45 changes employer five times less often than one under 25.
Your candidate often works in another sector
57% of switchers also change industry, DNB says. In media and ICT, 23.2% of newcomers came from retail and wholesale, 19.2% from staffing and 19.0% from business services. Healthcare and financial services keep their people. There most switchers stay in the sector, at another employer.
What you can do
- Offer a permanent contract from day one when you want to win over a candidate with a permanent job. It removes the biggest objection, and most employers don't offer it.
- Ask about the current contract in the first conversation, not only about salary. People on a permanent contract worry about security. People on a flexible one want prospects.
- Look outside your own sector. More than half of all switchers come from elsewhere.
- If you hire in healthcare or financial services, you mostly compete with employers in your own sector. There your offer as an employer decides.
Sources: IPMERC, Switchers start on a flexible contract (October 2026); CBS StatLine 85390NED; DNB Analyse on sectoral labour mobility, 28 May 2026.
Pearson & Partners locates and qualifies candidates with a permanent job, and helps them make the move.