Municipalities in the Netherlands Are Running Short of Staff

Dutch municipalities are struggling to keep enough civil servants in place, and the problem is expected to get worse. New research covered by NOS says that roughly one in three municipal employees will reach retirement age within the next 10 years, while many vacancies are already staying open for longer than before.

According to research from the A&O Fund for Municipalities (A&O fonds Gemeenten), local governments face three pressures at the same time: a tight labour market that is not going away soon, an aging workforce, and a rising workload for the people who remain.

The fund’s figures suggest municipal staff are aging faster than the workforce as a whole. Over the next decade, about 30% of municipal officials are expected to retire, compared with about 23% across the wider labour force. That means the municipal sector is likely to lose experience and capacity faster than many other parts of the economy.

Municipalities say it is already difficult to recruit skilled staff. In Arnhem, officials told Dutch media they have hundreds of vacancies per year, and that positions are not always filled quickly enough to keep work moving. The result, Arnhem said, is that projects can slow down or stop, including work linked to the energy transition and local redevelopment projects.

This is one reason why municipalities are looking for ways to recruit people differently. Some roles are highly specialised, and if there is no replacement, decisions and permits can pile up, contractors may have to wait, and planning schedules become harder to meet.

Arnhem has been testing a pilot known as a municipal pool. Instead of recruiting only for a specific vacancy with strict requirements, candidates are selected more on motivation and skills, and then placed into different roles and projects inside the municipality. The idea is that people can learn on the job and grow into more complex work over time, rather than needing to be fully trained for a niche role from day one. Arnhem says this approach has attracted people from a wider range of backgrounds.

Another concern is what happens when a large group retires at once: municipalities don’t just lose headcount, they lose “how things work” knowledge, networks, and experience with complex local rules.

To deal with that, several municipalities, including Westland, Rijswijk, Midden-Delfland and Maassluis, have been running a pilot that allows some retired civil servants to keep working part-time. Supporters say this can help with training new staff and keeping essential expertise available during the transition. The project’s organisers expect more municipalities to join.

The staffing challenge is often sharper for smaller municipalities. With fewer specialists per department, one departure can leave an entire topic area uncovered. Small municipalities also say they are competing for the same limited group of candidates, and larger cities can often offer better pay or more attractive career paths for the same kind of work.

Municipalities also face a basic labour-market problem: many skilled professionals can earn more elsewhere. The A&O Fund notes that municipal pay is often lower than in the private sector, especially in shortage roles such as financial specialists, lawyers, and civil engineers. At the same time, municipalities are being asked to do more (from migration-related tasks to major climate and energy transition projects) which increases pressure on existing staff.

Because municipalities work with public budgets and collective labour agreements, simply raising salaries quickly is not easy. That leaves local governments trying to compete with the private sector using other tools: more flexible entry routes, training, internal career paths, and creative ways to keep experienced people involved.

For most people, the biggest impact is not abstract “staffing levels,” but what happens when local governments can’t keep up. If shortages worsen, municipalities may struggle to deliver services at the same speed, including processing permits, managing local construction and infrastructure projects, and running complex social programmes that require specialised case workers.

That is why many municipalities are experimenting now. The common message is that the shortage is no longer seen as temporary. With a large retirement wave approaching, local governments are trying to reshape how they hire, train, and retain staff before the gap becomes even harder to close.