Absenteeism at Dutch Municipalities Hits Highest Level in Over 20 Years
A new report shows nearly three-quarters of Dutch municipalities are short-staffed, pushing up workloads and absences. Delays are hitting housing, the energy transition and enforcement.
Sick leave at Dutch municipalities has risen to its highest level in more than two decades, as staff shortages, workloads and absence feed off one another in what officials describe as a vicious circle. The findings come from the Personeelsmonitor Gemeenten 2025, the annual HR benchmark published on Tuesday by A&O fonds Gemeenten, the labour market fund for the municipal sector. More than 80 percent of all Dutch municipalities took part.
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A 20-year high in absence
The sick leave rate at municipalities reached 7.1 percent last year, the highest level in over twenty years. The increase is driven mainly by long-term absence, which rose from 5.2 to 5.6 percent. According to the monitor, physical conditions remain the leading cause of long-term absence, but workload and work stress now follow directly behind. Private circumstances are also playing a growing role: 55 percent of municipalities now name them as one of the three main causes, a rise of 8 percentage points.
A vicious circle
The report describes how the problems reinforce one another. When there are too few colleagues, the workload rises for the remaining staff, and that in turn leads to more absence, which deepens the shortage further.
Some 73 percent of municipalities faced a staff shortage in the past year. The vacancies that are hardest to fill are in spatial planning, housing and ICT, precisely the areas that are crucial for major national tasks such as housing construction, digitalisation and the energy transition.
Consequences for public services
The shortages are already affecting the services municipalities provide. Important tasks are running into delays, from housing construction and the energy transition to enforcement. Last month, RTV Utrecht reported that many municipalities are struggling to field enough special enforcement officers, known as boa’s. Municipalities also cannot always help households at risk of financial difficulty in time, and in some places there are not enough staff to call people who have fallen behind on payments.
An ageing workforce
A further pressure is the ageing of the municipal workforce. Many municipal employees are 55 or older, and if nothing changes, around a third of all staff are expected to retire within the next ten years. Municipalities are also struggling to hold on to younger workers: about 45 percent of new employees are under 35, but a quarter of those who leave are also under 35.
In total, almost 208,000 people now work for Dutch municipalities. The sector is still growing, but more slowly than before: by 3.6 percent in 2025, down from 4.6 percent in 2024 and 5.6 percent in 2023.
How municipalities are responding
Municipalities are increasingly shifting their focus from managing absence to prevention. Some 72 percent took measures to reduce workload over the past year, and 63 percent now have a “vitality” policy plan. To cope with the shortages, 95 percent are working to attract new talent, while 37 percent expect a stable headcount next year, a sign that the sector is moving from expansion towards more deliberate choices about priorities, employability and retaining staff.