The largest untapped group on the Dutch labour market is already employed. Part-timers who want to work more hours outnumber the unemployed, and almost every recruitment effort ignores them. Each of them wants only a little more, so the reserve will not solve the national shortage. Inside a single organisation with many part-timers, it can free up the equivalent of a full role without a single new hire.
A bigger pool than the one everyone fishes in
Eurostat splits the unused labour in each country into groups: the unemployed, part-timers who want more hours, and people who are available or searching but not both. In the Netherlands the part-timers wanting more hours form the largest of these groups, larger than the unemployed. Recruitment almost always starts with people who are not yet working. The pool almost nobody approaches is the bigger one.
The Netherlands stands out in Europe here. Unused part-time hours weigh well above the EU average and far above Germany. That follows from part-time work itself: no other member state has as large a share of its workers on part-time contracts, and where part-time is the norm, unused hours are too.
The reserve is also shrinking. It fell steeply between 2015 and the pandemic, and has barely moved in recent years. What is left is a stable layer, and it is unlikely to disappear on its own.
How much it really adds
Part-timers do not want full-time jobs. Research cited by the Dutch central bank finds that they want a couple of extra hours a week on average. Nationally that lifts labour volume only modestly, and it is fair to say so.
Within one employer the picture changes. A few extra hours each, across a team with many part-timers, adds up to more than a full working week. That capacity comes from people who already know the work, need no onboarding and cost nothing to recruit.
Why it does not happen anyway
The obstacles are practical. Nobody asks: contract hours are set at hiring and rarely revisited, even when the reason for them, small children for instance, has long gone. It does not always pay: around certain income levels and benefit thresholds, extra hours add little after tax, which is a real objection and not a lack of motivation. And the hours do not fit: extra time has to land when care duties and commuting allow it, and an employer who offers only whole days gets nothing.
What this does not show
The figures are national and count people, not hours per sector. They do not tell you how many of your own part-timers want more, or at which times. The estimate of extra hours wanted is an average from research the central bank cites, not a measurement per occupation. And in markets where part-timers mainly work because of care duties, the reserve may be smaller than the national picture suggests. If your own staff say no when asked, that settles it for you.
What you can do
- Ask. Before you open a vacancy, list your part-timers and check when their contract hours were last discussed.
- Convert the answers into full-time equivalents. Set the total beside the role you are about to recruit for.
- Offer the hours where they fit: part days, school hours, a later start. Whole days only will reach almost nobody.
- Check the net effect for the employee before you offer. An offer that pays nothing after tax will be refused.
- Treat it as relief while you recruit, not as a replacement for recruiting. It buys time in the first weeks, when the vacancy hurts most.