Dutch government plans to cut 25,000 civil service jobs by 2035 using AI

A plan to cut one sixth of central government

On Monday, 26 October 2026, state secretary Eric van der Burg sent a letter to the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament, setting out a plan to remove 25,000 full-time civil service posts by 2035. That amounts to roughly 16 percent of central government civil servants. Police and defence are excluded from the reductions. The plan puts savings at 900 million euros by 2027, rising to 3.5 billion euros a year by 2035. Van der Burg, a VVD politician who holds the Slagvaardige Overheid portfolio, serves in the cabinet led by Prime Minister Rob Jetten, a coalition of D66, VVD and CDA.

20270.9

20353.5

2027

0.9 billion euros

2035

3.5 billion euros

Data from the article text

Where the cuts would land

Most of the reductions would fall on implementing bodies such as the UWV, because most civil servants work there. Volkskrant reports that 112,000 of the central government's jobs sit at national implementing organisations such as the Tax Administration and Rijkswaterstaat. Van der Burg told NRC that the process begins at the core departments, among their overhead staff, and that simpler rules and fewer tasks could later shrink the implementing bodies as well.

The coalition had budgeted 2.4 billion euros in savings, and a further billion was added in the Miljoennennota budget document this autumn. Van der Burg defended the choice by arguing that the budget had to balance, and that the same billion would otherwise have to be found elsewhere, which would also hurt. He put the alternative bluntly:

“Either we keep things the way they are, and then we keep complaining that they do not work, or we change things.”

Years of growth and a sceptical view

Central government has grown rather than shrunk. Volkskrant reports that full-time posts rose from 110,000 in 2016 to 160,000 in 2025, and that personnel costs have nearly doubled since 2017, from 8 billion to 15.3 billion euros a year. The paper links the growth to the childcare benefits affair, earthquake damage claims in Groningen, housing, asylum and the Covid pandemic. External hiring accounts for 13.1 percent of personnel costs, above the 10 percent ceiling the state sets for itself.

2016110,000

2025160,000

2016

110000 full-time posts

2025

160000 full-time posts

Data from the article text

Bernard ter Haar, a former senior civil servant who led social security at the Social Affairs ministry, read the letter as "a lot of good intentions, but few concrete plans". He recalled earlier cuts that followed a "cheese-slicer method", in which every ministry received a fixed percentage to cut. Ter Haar argued that the government still has to decide which tasks it will keep doing:

“Simply slimming down leads to paralysis rather than more effectiveness.”

Volkskrant reports that about 6 percent of staff leave each year on average. A full hiring freeze would reach the 25,000 target within three years, but many posts cannot stay empty, so forced dismissals remain uncertain.

AI and the timeline ahead

The cabinet is due to set out goals and savings plans for deploying AI in the first quarter of 2027, and van der Burg wants to apply AI more broadly across government. The plan also calls for eliminating 500 unnecessary or overly bureaucratic rules a year and for reducing reliance on external contractors, with a preference for Dutch and European suppliers. The state secretary is also examining a German-style reversal of the burden of proof, under which each ministry would have to justify keeping a rule. Ministries are expected to bring proposals around the Voorjaarsnota, the spring budget memorandum. It is not yet clear how AI would be deployed in practice.