The Netherlands is counting partly on AI to cut 25,000 civil service jobs

On October 26, Eric van der Burg sent a letter to the Dutch Parliament. The liberal (VVD) state secretary, who is responsible for making the administration more efficient, sets a target: about 25,000 fewer full-time-equivalent positions in the central government by 2035. According to public broadcaster NOS, that is nearly 16% of the roughly 160,000 central government civil servants.

The police and defense, among others, are spared. Implementation agencies are not automatically exempt, not even those already under pressure: the tax authority, the employment and benefits agency UWV, or the immigration service IND. According to Bloomberg, some agencies could lose 45%, or even 60%, of their staff. The government expects savings of €900 million a year from 2027, then €3.5 billion a year from 2035.

Artificial intelligence, one lever among others

Several media outlets presented the announcement as a plan to cut jobs through AI. Dutch sources are more nuanced. NOS cites AI as an efficiency measure "among others." The detailed levers are often more down to earth: reducing ministries' general services, making IT systems identical from one department to another, simplifying rules by removing "exceptions to the exceptions," and cutting into the 28 advisory councils and the roughly 150 committees. The state secretary also wants to tighten the law on access to government documents. In his view, some requests are so broad that it is unclear what information to provide.

Still, AI carries weight in the reasoning. Parliament has adopted non-binding motions calling for a 20% increase in the administration's productivity through AI. According to Bloomberg, Eric van der Burg relies on these motions to justify the job cuts and wants to "apply AI even more widely." In mid-October, the daily De Telegraaf, citing internal sources, put the savings expected from AI at an additional €200 million in 2028, the same in 2029, then €1 billion a year from 2035.

An AI plan expected in early 2027

Details are still missing. According to Bloomberg, the government will present its plan to make the administration more productive through AI in early 2027. It wants to work mainly with Dutch and European suppliers, to depend less on technologies from elsewhere. Other European countries are also reviewing the AI tools used by their administrations: in Sweden, in the name of information security, ministries have just cut access to ChatGPT and Claude.

The allocation of cuts among ministries has not been set. According to NOS, Eric van der Burg hopes to finalize a good part of his plans within about six months. Previous governments had already tried to shrink the administration, without success: according to Bloomberg, its headcount has grown by 41% since 2018. The state secretary believes that this time, everyone recognizes "that things have to be done differently."

A warning from within the Netherlands

According to De Telegraaf, the advisory committee on the future of the civil service has warned that digital tools and AI make the administration more efficient only if the accumulation of rules and checks is tackled too. The question arises in France as well: the State's HR directorate (DRH de l'État) estimates that one in five public employees works in a job exposed to AI. The Dutch plan expected in 2027 will say how much of the savings AI is really meant to deliver, and with what tools.