Minister Paul: After a lifetime of hard work, you want to enjoy your retirement in good health. For most people, working healthily longer is quite feasible, but we see that for people with heavy work, it really demands more. I find it very important that together with employer and employee organizations we do our best to also allow these people to reach their retirement healthily. Therefore, we are jointly starting various projects. We want to lighten heavy work and exchange knowledge and experience.
Preventing and alleviating heavy work
Various measures are being taken to prevent and alleviate heavy work. A subsidy will be available for partnerships and SMEs to start projects that prevent or alleviate heavy work. Contributions are also made to the FRAIM research and innovation center. This part of TU Delft helps SMEs with innovation labs to develop and spread solutions that make heavy physical work less demanding.
Thirdly, funds will be made available for projects where scientific knowledge or practical knowledge about heavy work is further developed. This knowledge can then be better and more often applied by other sectors, companies, or organizations. Trade unions, employers, and the ministry will jointly give more shape to this in the coming period.
Finally, TNO is establishing an expertise center for heavy work that, among other things, sets up a knowledge program focused on collecting and sharing knowledge about heavy work, early retirement schemes (RVU), and sustainable employability.
Background
In the 2019 pension agreement, it was agreed that €1 billion would be made available to help people reach retirement healthily. This budget was available until 2025 and was used in the Custom Scheme for Sustainable Employability and Early Retirement (MDIEU). In the Healthy to retirement agreement from October 2024, it was agreed that the remaining funds from this budget would be made available for new projects around heavy work and keeping people healthy at work. It is expected that approximately €200 million remains from the MDIEU to be used for these projects until 2030. The spring memorandum will make the final decision on the use of the funds.