Agency workers and pay transparency: Reporting duties for hirers in the Netherlands

At a glance

• Under the latest version of the Dutch bill implementing the Gender Pay Transparency Directive (Directive), the hirer, rather than the lender (eg a staffing agency), will be required to report on the pay of posted workers (eg agency workers).
• Lenders must provide hirers, in good time and using a prescribed template, with the pay data the hirer needs for its pay report and joint pay assessment. This obligation applies not only to staffing agencies but to any company that hires out or lends workers.
• In turn, hirers must give lenders the pay information they need to meet their own transparency obligations.
• The approach differs from earlier drafts of the bill, and the draft order and ministerial regulation now set out the details.

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The draft bill introduces a new Article 12b into the Dutch Placement of Personnel by Intermediaries Act, creating a statutory framework for information sharing between hirers and lenders. The lender remains the formal employer and must comply with the pay transparency obligations owed to its posted workers, such as the right to information. However, because the lender depends on the hirer to meet some of these obligations, Article 12b requires hirers to provide lenders with:

• Pay and pay range information for vacancies.
• The criteria used to determine pay, pay levels and pay progression.
• Average pay levels broken down by gender for categories of workers.

This marks a considerable change from earlier drafts. The version submitted to the Council of State relied largely on the information hirers already shared with lenders about applicable terms and conditions of employment, and did not require a separate transfer of pay data. Under the current proposal, lenders must provide hirers with actual remuneration data, using a standardised template to be established by collective labour agreement or, failing that, by ministerial regulation. Similarly, the earlier consultation draft did not require a separate flow of information from hirer to lender. Under the current proposal, this information flows from the hirer to the lender, which then uses it to comply with its own transparency obligations.

The draft General Administrative Order also introduces a dedicated pay reporting methodology for posted workers. It clarifies that lenders must provide hirers with the remuneration data attributable to the specific assignment, so that the hirer can prepare the required pay report. The draft Ministerial Regulation specifies the data to be supplied for each worker, including fixed and variable pay components, hours paid, job category, job title and gender. Only remuneration attributable to the assignment with that particular hirer is included. Certain elements that cannot readily be allocated to a specific hirer, such as the taxable benefit for a company car and the employee pension contribution, are excluded from the hirer’s reporting.

From a practical perspective, the proposal creates a significant new administrative burden for both hirers and lenders. Hirers will need systems to provide lenders with the data they need to comply with their pay transparency obligations, while lenders will need to generate assignment-specific remuneration data and transfer it in the prescribed format. As this is still a draft, and the government has repeatedly stated that it wishes to minimise the administrative burden on employers, the proposal is subject to change.