Rate development professionals 2024

We are balancing between economic contraction and growth. After nine months of decline, we saw a modest rebound in our economy in the fourth quarter of 2023. Despite once again challenging market conditions such as inflation and "higher" market interest rates, we ventured another forecast for 2024 with this Talent Monitor. You can read about it in this report.

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Hourly rates for self-employed and seconded workers lag behind collective bargaining wages

The hourly rates of flexible workers, self-employed workers and professionals employed by secondment agencies, rose an average of 4.3 percent in 2023 compared to 2022. This increase lags slightly behind the trend in collective bargaining wages. An average rate increase of one to two percent is expected for 2024. This is according to the latest Talent Monitor from labor market data specialist Intelligence Group and HR-tech service provider HeadFirst Group.

Read the entire press release here

Key findings

  • After three quarters of contraction in the Dutch economy, the fourth quarter of 2023 shows a slight increase of 0.3% compared to the third quarter. Compared to 2022, however, there is still a decline of 0.5%.
  • Several signs indicate that there is some relief in the scarcity in the labor market. Demand for personnel is decreasing slightly and supply appears to be increasing slightly.
  • Compared to a year ago, labor market activity among self-employed professionals - the extent to which they move from assignment to assignment - shows a slight increase from 20.1 to 21.7% in the fourth quarter of 2023, compared to the same quarter in 2022. There was also some growth in the group of latent professionals, who, while not actively seeking new assignments, are open to other options. At the same time, the number not moving at all decreased.
  • There has been a sharp increase in the average number of offers per job. By the end of 2023, this number was almost at the same level as during the peak in the second quarter of 2020.
  • The number of self-employed people who want to be employed (back) has increased slightly. At 11.6%, it is still far behind the percentage in 2021, when it was 17.0%. In addition, just 13.0% of employees indicate that they would like to work as a self-employed person (again).
  • Sourcing pressure continues to grow unchanged: on average, self-employed individuals are approached about 18 times a year for a job. More than six in 10 are approached at least once a quarter.
  • Data from HeadFirst Group shows that the rates of flexible workers - self-employed and professionals employed by secondment firms - who started a new assignment in 2023 rose an average of 4.3% compared to 2022.

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