The Netherlands Plans to Shed About 25,000 Civil Service Jobs by 2035, With AI One of Several Levers

The Dutch government expects to need an estimated 25,000 fewer full-time equivalent posts in central government (translated), spread over several years, as savings on the civil service rise from €900 million (about $1 billion) in 2027 to €3.5 billion (about $3.9 billion) from 2035 (translated). The figure comes from a progress letter to the House of Representatives dated October 26, 2026, sent by State Secretary Eric van der Burg. The figure is a rough staffing estimate, not 25,000 workers receiving a dismissal letter (translated), and one route is not refilling every post that falls vacant (translated). AI is one lever among several in the plan, and the same letter warns not to overestimate the staffing effects of digitalisation and AI (translated). For Metaintro readers, this guide sets out who is covered, which bodies are exempt, how big a role AI really plays and what Dutch civil servants are entitled to if their post goes.

How Many Dutch Civil Service Jobs Are Going, and Is It Really 25,000?

The base is precise. At the end of 2025 there were 160,016 full-time equivalents working in the central civil service (translated), across ministries, inspectorates and implementing agencies, all of them civil servants under the CAO Rijk collective agreement.

The cut is not. It is a rough estimate (translated), and the real number depends on whether the savings fall more on staff in higher or in lower salary scales.

Measured against the base, the reduction comes to around 16 percent of the government's workforce by 2035. Van der Burg himself rounded it differently in an interview, calling it less than 20 percent, rounding very broadly.

Full-time equivalents are not people. Two staff who each work half a week count together as one FTE (translated), so the number of individual workers affected can differ because not every civil servant works full time (translated).

The base also leaves out a lot of public employment. Municipalities, education and care are not simply part of this count (translated), and a further estimated 218,000 civil servants worked in other central public organisations (translated), such as the courts, independent agencies, police and defence, at the end of 2025.

Which Government Bodies Are Exempt, and Which Will Feel It Most?

Police and defence are exempt from the savings (translated). Other organisations spared one or more of the targets include the prison service DJI, the security services, the High Councils of State, the foreign ministry's network of posts and the Public Prosecution Service (translated).

Big implementing agencies are not on that list. The Tax and Customs Administration, the benefits agency UWV and the Immigration and Naturalisation Service are not excluded in advance (translated). Because most civil servants work in delivery, a large part of the target will also land on implementation (translated).

The burden will be uneven. For many organisations the target means a staff reduction of about 20% (translated), and for some, as temporary budgets run out, it can climb to about 45%, or in a single case about 60%. That is why the average does not show what happens in one department (translated), and the split per ministry has not yet been set (translated).

Will Civil Servants Be Laid Off, or Will Jobs Simply Not Be Refilled?

Attrition is one route. Van der Burg does not intend to implement a hiring freeze, because work could grind to a halt if key people left and were not replaced.

Instead, we can ask ourselves in each instance: does the person leaving actually need to be replaced?, Eric van der Burg said in an interview with Het Parool, according to the NL Times report.

The letter contains no general dismissal list (translated), and retirements, vacancies left open and reorganisations can each reduce headcount. How many civil servants actually lose their jobs, and how many posts go through natural turnover or reorganisations, is not yet known (translated). Whether compulsory redundancies will be needed is not yet clear (translated), and depends on how fast posts can go, how many staff leave and the reorganisations each ministry carries out.

Past savings rounds also show the cost of a freeze. Vacancy stops caused relatively many good people to leave, cut off the inflow of new talent and stopped young people from moving up (translated), leaving whole cohorts missing from the workforce years later. Any faster outflow must go hand in hand with keeping enough qualified staff in the short and longer term (translated), and the letter commits to respecting existing collective agreements even in large reorganisations.

How Big Is AI's Role in the Plan?

AI is a named lever, but its targets are not set yet. The cabinet will present goals and savings plans for using AI to work more productively in the first quarter of 2027 (translated). The cabinet will also be systematically examining where AI can be applied in purchasing (translated), and wider AI use depends on security, data quality and sovereignty, plus changes to infrastructure and a fundamental rethink of work processes.

Digital contact is one example. Van der Burg pointed to the shift from phone lines to web pages and chat, adding that you can ask a chatbot a question 24 hours a day. The cut is meant to be met by standardising IT systems and using other tools to make government more efficient, including AI.

AI could save an extra €200 million (about $224 million) in both 2028 and 2029, with a further €200 million planned for the interior ministry's budget the following year, rising to €1 billion (about $1.1 billion) a year from 2035, insiders told De Telegraaf before the letter.

Past savings rounds urge caution. Over twenty years, digitalisation and automation did not deliver the promised savings in costs and staff (translated), and instead led to new tasks, more capacity and more contractors.

Where Else Is the Money Supposed to Come From?

The savings rise over ten years (translated). On the way to the full yearly amount from 2035, the target on the civil service passes about €2.5 billion (about $2.8 billion) in 2030 (translated). The cut covers more than salaries, including office space, outside advisers, facilities, IT systems and other organisation costs (translated).

Efficiency alone will not cover it. The cabinet builds in a general efficiency gain of at most 0.5% a year, which can fill about a third of the target (translated), the rate the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) considers realistic. The rest depends on choices about what government does differently, less or not at all, grouped in four pillars (translated) of leaner business operations, simpler chains and schemes, better digital services, and fewer layers of steering, control and advice.

Some choices will have to be made regarding what the government should be doing less or not at all, Eric van der Burg said, according to the DutchNews.nl report.

Several concrete moves are already named:

• Offices. Central government buildings move to a standard of 0.5 workstation for each employee (translated), with security exceptions linked to NATO or EU obligations. Even on the busiest days, office occupancy rarely reaches 70 percent, Van der Burg said.
• Advice. The cabinet will substantially reduce its 28 permanent advisory councils and about 150 advisory committees (translated).
• Evaluations. The number of policy evaluations, now about 400 a year, will fall sharply (translated).
• Rules. Central government will scrap or simplify at least 500 rules a year (translated), backed by a yearly simplification law.
• Contractors. The cabinet wants a civil service with fewer people, less external hiring and lower running costs (translated).

Why Has the Dutch Civil Service Grown So Much?

Since 2018 the central civil service has grown by about 41%, or 46,500 FTE (translated). Measured in full-time jobs, it went from about 113,500 in 2018 (translated) to the level counted at the end of 2025.

Policy roles grew faster than delivery roles. Since 2018, civil servants who carry out laws and rules rose by 28 percent, while those involved in policy-making increased by 56 percent, Van der Burg told Het Parool. Policy officials have almost doubled to 20,000 in the past decade, an analyst told De Telegraaf, and former senior civil servant Roel Bekker has called for their number to be cut by 20% to 30%.

The government warns against treating that growth as easy to reverse. The idea that parts of government could simply return to 2019 or 2020 levels ignores the new and heavier tasks added in recent years (translated), and the measures may affect service, continuity and current delivery work (translated).

What Protections Do Dutch Civil Servants Have if Their Post Goes?

Staff covered by the CAO Rijk have a set route. Under the work-to-work policy, known as VWNW, guidance to other work is central (translated), in four consecutive steps.

It starts with an assessment. An independent mobility adviser carries out the VWNW study (translated) into the worker's wishes and options, then drafts advice on training, extra work experience and support. Either side can ask a second adviser for a new opinion within two weeks (translated).

The job search itself runs in three consecutive periods of six months each (translated). In the first period a suitable job must be within central government and at least the same scale (translated). For a compulsory candidate, it may be at most two scales lower in the second and third periods (translated), with two more years of help back to the old scale. In the third period the search widens to all government organisations affiliated with the pension fund ABP (translated).

If nothing is found, compulsory candidates move into a final phase where a suitable job can also be outside government and more than two scales lower (translated). Disagreements over a VWNW plan or the extension of a period can go to the CAO Rijk disputes committee (translated).

Can Dutch Civil Servants Take a Payout Instead?

Yes, for staff in the VWNW route. They can give up guided job search and their VWNW provisions and end their contract with an incentive bonus, the stimuleringspremie (translated). It is set by years in the ABP pension scheme, from 4 monthly salaries for less than 10 years to 24 for 30 years or more (translated). The bonus does not apply to a voluntary candidate whose case was only a move of work location with no threat of redundancy (translated). It is lower pro rata for a compulsory candidate who already had months of guidance (translated), and the number of monthly salaries cannot exceed the months left to state pension (AOW) age or to the end of a temporary contract with the State (translated).

There is a ceiling. Payment is currently capped at €102,000 (about $114,000), or twelve months' salary plus 16.50% IKB budget if that is higher (translated). The bonus must be repaid if the worker later receives unemployment benefit because of the dismissal, or returns to a central government employer (translated) within the period the bonus covers. Workers can also swap the bonus for a paid leave period that pushes back their end date (translated), unless their organisation's staff rules exclude that option. The choice sets a lump sum against a guided search, the same trade-off as deciding whether to accept a voluntary separation package.

What Happens Next, and When Will Each Ministry Know Its Number?

The detail is months away. A multi-year approach for the future of the civil service is due within half a year (translated), including proposals from the Commission on the Future of the Civil Service, and how the savings are filled in will follow in the spring budget memorandum.

Parliament gets its first say at the committee debate on effective government and regulatory burden on December 1 (translated). The cabinet is also preparing legal changes to make the Open Government Act (Woo) more workable (translated), with Van der Burg writing that information requests are frequently so broad that it is no longer clear what information we are supposed to provide.

It is the first time Van der Burg has put a number on the civil service cuts. Which advisory bodies close or merge will be made public later (translated).

What This Means for Job Seekers, and What Should You Do Next?

For people already inside, the reduction is spread over several years (translated) up to 2035, and staff whose posts go have the CAO work-to-work route set out above. People hoping to get in face a different problem. When vacancies are not refilled, the inflow of starters can be hit (translated).

• Inside the civil service. Know your VWNW rights, set out above, before any reorganisation reaches you, including the choice between a guided search and the incentive bonus.
• Graduates and job seekers. Central government still advertises through Werken voor Nederland, including the Rijkstraineeprogramma and the Rijks ICT Traineeprogramma, and it helps to know the types of civil service jobs and how to choose a government career path before applying.
• Contractors and freelancers. Less external hiring is one of the cabinet's aims for the civil service (translated).
• Anyone in routine admin work. One of the four savings pillars covers digitising and automating services and the processes behind them (translated).

Lacey Kaelani, Metaintro's CEO, puts it this way: A hiring slowdown hurts the people who never got the offer more than the people who already have the badge. If you want a public sector career, move while the doors are still open.

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People Also Asked

Q: How many civil service jobs is the Netherlands cutting?

A: The cabinet expects an estimated 25,000 fewer full-time equivalent posts by 2035 (translated), spread over several years.

Q: Will Dutch civil servants be fired because of the cuts?

A: The plan includes not replacing every leaver, with no hiring freeze intended, and whether compulsory redundancies will be needed is not yet clear (translated). Staff whose posts go are covered by the CAO Rijk work-to-work policy (translated).

Q: Is AI replacing Dutch government workers?

A: AI is one of several levers, and the cabinet's own lessons warn not to overestimate the staffing effects of digitalisation and AI (translated).

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