THE HAGUE, 03/05/07 - Dutch employees worked 36.7 hours a week on average in 2006. According to contracts, they were active for 31.3 hours and they did an additional 5.4 hours of paid and unpaid overtime, the National Survey of Labour Conditions (NEA) 2006 shows.

Women and young people work fewer hours than men and older employees. Also noteworthy is that the longest workweeks are in construction and industry, around 38 and 35.5 hours respectively. The shortest workweeks are in the hotels and catering (horeca) and healthcare sectors, about 24 and 25 hours. Overtime (paid and unpaid combined) affect employees most in the horeca and transport, at over 7 and nearly 9 hours per week.

According to NEA, 16 percent of the Dutch work with a flexible contract. Under 'flexible,' two forms of temporary work are included (with and without prospects of a permanent job), as well as temps agency work and standby and substitute work. Flexible contracts are particularly favoured by employers in small and medium-sized companies.

The NEA finds that flexible work occurs by far the most frequently among younger people. Among employees aged up to 25, 54 percent have a flexible contract, compared with just 6 percent among the over 55s. The difference between men and women is not great, 15 versus 18 percent.

Regarding sectors, it can be seen that the horeca and agriculture work relatively often with flexible contracts, namely for 39 and 23 percent of the employees there. In business services, flex-workers make up 21 percent of employees and in cultural and other services, 20 percent. Flex-work is not popular in industry, construction, public administration and financial services.

NEA has been sent by Social Affairs Minister Piet Hein Donner to the Lower House. The annual survey is carried out by the Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS) and scientific institute TNO.

The social affairs ministry notes that more people are prepared to work on until age 65. Some 25 percent want to do so now, compared with around 20 percent in 2005, according to NEA. Among young people aged below 25, 38.5 percent want to work through, whereas among older people (55 to 65), this is just 18.3 percent.