In a panel discussion on the Dutch radio station BNR Nieuwsradio on 3 June 2019, Bas Jacobs, Sijbren Cnossen Professor of Public Economics at Erasmus School of Economics, discusses the progress towards a pension agreement and the increased tension in the trade war between the US and China. Other panel members are Menno Middeldorp (Rabobank) and Roelof Salomons (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen).
Did the strike in public transportation on the 28th of May had anything to do with the letter that Minister Koolmees sent to labour unions and employers on the 31st of May, in which he wrote that the Dutch cabinet is willing to increase the retirement age in a slower pace? According to Professor Bas Jacobs it is all part of the game. However, he believes that employees have striked for the wrong purpose. The retirement age should have been 67 already ten year ago, or maybe even earlier, says Professor Jacbos. Our life expectancy is increasing, we get fewer children, so it is obvious that the retirement age has to increase in line with this. It already should have and we are taking action way too slow, says Bas Jacobs. So the fact that we are now delaying this process sends out all the wrong signals to society. That there are problems with regards to heavy occupations and that we need more time for that is understandable. But we must accept the general principle that when we become older, we also must work longer. We have to catch up, but every progress we have made is reversed this way.
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Listen to the entire podcast (in Dutch) on BNR Nieuwsradio, d.d. 3 June 2019