'Basic employment' will not benefit our country

The 'basic job' should replace benefits as a safety net for the welfare state. That is the advice of the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) of the Netherlands. Will the modern version of the Melkert job work? Jeroen van Gennep does not believe so; he advocates a basic income.

Published in De Telegraaf, leading national newspaper of the Netherlands, on 21 januari 2020 in de paper edition & online

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"Basic jobs", intended for people on benefits and with little chance on the labour market, are good for everyone according to the WRR: the individual, the economy and society. You could even add stigmatisingly that former 'benefit recipients' are now 'going back to work as they should'. Yet the concept of basic jobs offers little hope and ratger, the ideal is stuck in by gone times and not a good solution for the future.

"If we can increasingly make technology work for us, as in the example of the port of Rotterdam, we will be better off without benefits and subsidized jobs but with a basic income."

Let us cast our gaze a little wider, on the three factors that will determine the future of work according to the WRR report, namely technologization (artificial intelligence), flexibilization and intensification of work. The last two mainly have an effect on 'how' people work, while technologization has an effect on 'who' does the work.

Automation

In many industries, far-reaching automation has swallowed up jobs, such as at the container terminals in the port of Rotterdam. In many other industries, it is a matter of time. In freight transport, for example, the question is not if, but when self-driving trucks will appear on the road.

'Create basic jobs for the unemployed'

The benefits of self-driving vehicles in terms of improved safety, efficiency and cost savings outweigh the disadvantages in terms of job losses for businesses, and ultimately for the public sector. Max, a truck driver quoted in the WRR report, says hopefully: “If [automated freight transport] gets that far, you will still need someone to monitor the machine.” What Max says is true, but if you look at the number of staff that will be needed to perform that monitoring – the ‘who’ – that is a fraction of the current employment in that sector.

The idea of ​​basic jobs cannot be seen separately from the rapid (technological) developments of today. The report mentions the examples of the municipalities of Amsterdam and The Hague, which have been experimenting with variants of basic jobs for some time, with the Werkbrigade and STIP jobs respectively. We are also all familiar with the Melkert jobs in the Netherlands in the 1990s. This cost, with inflation correction, €18,500 per integrated unemployed person. That is an exorbitantly high amount (for comparison: the current net minimum wage is €12,400). The experiment in Amsterdam costs a total of €22,000 per participant per year. This is not sustainable.

Universal Basic Income

A better solution is a basic income, an unconditional monthly payment from the government to every citizen. By abolishing benefits, subsidized jobs and all the expensive bureaucracy around it, the budget to finance this basic income is freed up.

This does not alter the fact that paid work has important functions. In the WRR report I count seven: from a structured daily schedule to gaining self-respect. However, six of the seven functions are perfectly feasible without working for a paycheck. If we do not need to have a job, we can fully devote ourselves to volunteer work, informal care, raising children and developing our creative brains. Will we create a land of plenty with a basic income? No, not to a greater extent than we already have. Perhaps we should accept that some people already live an idle life. If we can increasingly make technology work for us, as in the example of the port of Rotterdam, we will be better off without benefits and subsidized jobs but with a basic income.”

Jeroen van Gennep, Political Economist