Our surveys
Our data, numbers, statistics and reports about the Dutch working population are all based on our surveys and questionnaires. TNO collaborates with Statistics Netherlands (CBS) to collect data in several of these studies.
These surveys each focus on mapping the labor situation in the Netherlands from a different point of view. You can click on the surveys below for more information.
Netherlands Working Conditions Survey
We collect information about working in the Netherlands, seen through the eyes of employees, in the Netherlands Working Conditions Survey (NWCS). The NWCS is a large-scale annual survey that monitors changes in the work and working conditions of employees in the Netherlands and the consequences for their health and sustainable employability.
More than 50,000 employees participate in this survey every year. As a result, the NWCS gives a unique insight into working in the Netherlands.
The NWCS is a collaborative project of TNO, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) and the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. The aim of the NWCS is to fill the need for information that the government, employers, unions, branch organizations and many more express. This way, the NWCS supports the development of both scientific and political knowledge on the subject of labor.
Netherlands Employers Work Survey
The Netherlands Employers Work Survey (NEWS) is a biennial survey among employers about recruitment, deployment, organization and results of work by and from companies and institutions in the Netherlands. The main objective of NEWS is to monitor trends and developments in labor policy and the relationship with and effect of that policy on business results, labor productivity, innovation and health and/or illness.
Every two years, the NEWS collects periodic information about labor policy among a large and representative sample of companies and institutions in the Netherlands.
NEWS is a source for policy and scientific knowledge development in the field of labor policy of organizations. As a result, NEWS provides governments, social partners and other stakeholders with decision-making and policy-relevant information about labor policies of companies and institutions and their effects.
Netherlands Survey of the Self-employed
‘Being your own boss’. More and more Dutch people are undertaking these endeavors. Self-employed entrepreneurs form an important and ever increasing part of the Dutch working population. The Netherlands Survey of the Self-employed (NSS) is the Dutch survey among self-employed entrepreneurs about their working conditions and sustainable employability. The NSS is a collaborative project of TNO, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) and the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment.
After the pilot in 2012, the NSS has been carried out biannually since 2015. More than 6,500 self-employed entrepreneurs, with and without employees, complete the questionnaire.
NWCS-COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the working life of the entire working population in the Netherlands. TNO has followed a group of employees in the Netherlands during and after the pandemic. This study by TNO provides insight into the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on working conditions, health and future prospects of employees in the Netherlands in the short and long term.
The fieldwork for the first NWCS-COVID-19 measurement was carried out between the end of June and the end of July 2020, 3 months after the start of the governmental measures and before the resurgence of COVID-19 in August 2020. The fieldwork for the second measurement was carried out in November 2020, during the second wave, at a time when infections continued to rise and a partial lockdown had been introduced. The fieldwork for the third measurement was carried out in March 2021, during the third wave when measures were further tightened.
The fieldwork of the fourth measurement was carried out from mid-November to mid-December, at a time of increasing infections, hospital admissions and tightened measures, but before the lockdown. The last measurement took place from early June 2023 to early July 2023, when the pandemic had entered an endemic phase.
Information is available for 6,323 participants from both 2019 and the fifth measurement in mid-2023.
Sustainable employability for life
Our longitudinal study on sustainable employability CODI (Cohort Onderzoek Duurzame Inzetbaarheid in Dutch) provides new knowledge about factors that influence the extent to which people can and want to keep working. This research therefore provides insight into factors associated with sustainable employability.
Since 2016, we have been approaching a panel of employees, self-employed people and non-working people in the age category of 15 to 75 years. By means of weighting it is possible to provide representative figures for the Dutch population.
STREAM
To counter the effects of an aging working population, it is essential that older employees participate in paid employment for a longer period of time. In STREAM, the Study on Transitions in Employment, Ability, and Motivation, we research under which conditions persons aged 45 and older are able to participate in paid employment productively and healthily.
STREAM is a longitudinal study among people aged 45 and older. This means that we follow the same group of people over a large number of years. This makes it possible to investigate long-term effects of, for example, work factors or changes therein, to include exposure duration, or to investigate different individual pathways.
In 2010 we started with approximately 15,000 participants. This group was supplemented with 6,750 new participants in 2015. Within STREAM, TNO collaborates with various (inter)national universities and knowledge institutes. Many reports and articles have already been published that report on research with the STREAM data.