Netherlands to Cut 25,000 Civil Service Jobs in A.I. Push

The Dutch government wants to shrink its central administration by about 25,000 full-time jobs over the next few years, and it wants artificial intelligence to help make the math work. State secretary Eric van der Burg laid out the plan in a letter to Parliament on Monday, with the state promising to become “simpler, smarter and smaller.”

This is not a trimming exercise around the edges. Roughly 170,000 people work in the central administration now, so the planned cut is about one in seven jobs. The government says the police and military are off-limits, but the rest of the machine is being told to do more with less. It also wants the administration to save €900 million in 2027, then €3.5 billion a year from 2035.

AI is supposed to become one of the main tools for that. The government says it will set out concrete targets and savings plans in the first quarter of 2027, which means the real details are still a long way off. For now, the promise is vague on the most important point: which tasks machines will actually take over.

The plan goes well beyond headcount. There will be only one workstation for every two employees, surplus buildings will be sold, and the number of permanent advisory councils, advisory committees and annual policy evaluations will be cut sharply. At least 500 rules a year are meant to be scrapped or simplified, and the government is even looking at a German-style reversal of the burden of proof, where each ministry would have to justify why a rule still exists.

The coalition pushing this is politically fragile. Prime Minister Rob Jetten’s D66 governs with the VVD and CDA, but the three parties hold only 66 of the 150 seats, so every big move needs outside votes. That matters, because the cabinet is also trying to keep the deficit below 2 percent through 2030 while spending more on defense, education and agriculture. It is a lot to ask from a state that just spent years growing its civil service instead of shrinking it.