THE HAGUE, Wednesday - In recent years, the Netherlands has become stricter towards people who do not want to work. But there are still some people who refuse every job and nonetheless keep their welfare payments.

The number of people on welfare has dropped to 300,000, the lowest level in over 25 years. "We are a dying species," according to 51 year old Gertjan van Beijnum. He is one of a number of job-refusers on principle interviewed in De Volkskrant.

Van Beijnum never did a day's work in his life. He has received welfare payments since he prematurely stopped his course at an art academy. For 28 years, he has received a basic benefit payment of - currently - 800 euros a month. "It is not that I cannot work; I do not want to. I am against being a wage-slave."

Van Beijnum has an ally in Jan Muter, 48. As a sociology student, he had a paid job for a year in 1982, but his CV goes no further. He is actually a member of the Netherlands Union Against the Work Ethic (NBTA) and active for a magazine for work refuseniks, 'De luie donder'. ('The lazy bum').

The NBTA, set up in the 1980s, was in the initial years taken seriously by politicians, union officials, academics and journalists. Muter regrets that the NBTA no longer has any influence. "Why should I work for the profit of others," he explains.

The Work and Welfare Act (WWB) was introduced in 2004 with the aim of getting everyone who can work into the labour market. De Volkskrant predicts that Van Beijnum and Muter "will no longer be able to escape the 'repression' of the WWB." But Van Beijnum denies this. "I am convinced that I can remain a paid jobless person until I am a pensioner."