Explicit rules for working past the state pension age are appearing in more Dutch collective bargaining agreements, AD reports. In the first half of 2026, 11 of 214 new agreements included them. Employers argue they want to retain experienced workers amid a tight labor market.

Staff shortages and an aging population drive the shift, according to the employers’ association AWVN. “Moreover, the sixty-year-old of today is no longer the sixty-year-old of twenty years ago,” Jannes van der Velde from AWVN told AD.

Employers seek to keep experienced workers longer, and many employees prefer to remain active. “A quarter of employers ask state-pension-eligible employees to continue working, or actively recruit them,” AWVN stated in its interim evaluation of the 2026 collective bargaining year.

The tight labor market “explains basically everything,” Van der Velde said. “Employers look: how valuable are these people still?” Older workers are often used as coaches for new colleagues. High workloads at many companies frequently leave proper onboarding neglected.

At Arbo Unie, employees can receive a new employment contract after reaching state pension age. Working hours and schedules are set by mutual agreement. In reorganizations, the company first ends contracts with pension-eligible staff.

At Canon Production Printing, continued employment occurs only by mutual voluntary agreement and for a limited period. Employees no longer accrue pension benefits, receive a maximum of 12 weeks of full sick pay, and fall outside generation-pact arrangements.

The collective agreement at Zorg van de Zaak allows a maximum of six temporary contracts over four years. Sick pay is limited to six weeks, and the right to severance pay no longer applies.

Collective agreements covering the central government, health care, technology, and education already contained options for temporary contracts after state pension age.

Agreements on inclusivity, health and work-life balance also expanded. Sixteen percent of the collective agreements include provisions on gender-transition leave, exchanging religious holidays, or menstruation and menopause complaints.

No agreement establishes concrete menstruation leave. Spain became the first European country to introduce statutory paid menstruation leave in 2023. In Dutch higher professional education, employers are required only to “take into account” menstruation, menopause, and fertility complaints. The publishing-sector agreement states that employees “must be able to be facilitated” for menstruation and menopause complaints. Ikea’s agreement refers to “support” for the same issues.

Van der Velde does not expect specific menstruation leave to arrive soon in the Netherlands. “You can’t elevate this to a societal problem and then put the bill with the employer,” he said. Employers prefer informal arrangements. “Sometimes solutions can be very simple: working from home more often and swapping with colleagues. As an employer you want to enable your employee to do her job well. But that mainly requires an open exchange of thoughts with supervisors on the floor.”

AWVN observes a clear cultural shift. “There is really a culture change underway. The time of ‘don’t complain’ is over,” Van der Velde said.

The collective agreement for the cleaning and window-cleaning sector set an early example this year. Employees can arrange extra breaks, flexible hours, or later start times.

More than half of the examined collective agreements contain provisions on heavy work. In the metal, industry, infrastructure and energy sectors, employers and the research institute TNO are identifying jobs that are so physically or mentally demanding that workers cannot remain healthy until state pension age.

In the Metalektro sector, new participants starting in 2026 receive an extra 300 euros gross per month in early-retirement benefits. At ProRail, employees may stop earlier if their job appears on a designated heavy-work list.

Average contractual wage increases in newly concluded collective agreements through June reached 3.3 percent a year, down from 4.1 percent the previous year. AWVN described the negotiations with unions as “strikingly tough.”

“We see from all sides that the business climate in the Netherlands is certainly not improving. But we sense little willingness from the unions to think along about this,” Van der Velde said.