Creative freelancers in the Netherlands are often among those who suffer from a chronic lack of money. This has been confirmed once again by recent figures from the CBS. How is it possible that people who work full-time still cannot make ends meet? What can we do about this?
If you are working full-time but still cannot make ends meet, you probably have too few ‘billable hours’. If you also have too little bargaining power, your rate for the hours you can bill is too low. This happens to many self-employed people in the creative sector. Their livelihoods are now further threatened by the current approach to bogus self-employment.
Calculating rates correctly
The government now states that you can speak of a possible employment contract (‘legal presumption’) at 37 euros per hour. That is a lower limit. That lower limit says nothing about a liveable income. The VBAR rate is structured as follows:
The surcharge percentages in this calculation are too general. They should really be adjusted for each sector. An hourly rate of 37 euros can only be maintained if the surcharge percentages of 25%, 15% and the correction of 0.5 for non-billable hours are in line with reality. And they often do not do so for the creative sector. This is a sector with a relatively high amount of ‘downtime’, i.e. time that is not spent on ‘real’ work, but on inspiration or research, for example.
The correction for non-billable hours is “+0.5”. This would mean that two-thirds of your working hours can also be considered billable work. This is the biggest misunderstanding in the entire calculation. This ratio differs for each profession. Each profession should therefore have its own ratios. If a self-employed person is 66% billable, then you are talking about 1150 – 1200 hours per year, around 26 billable hours per week.
There are many professions that do not work those kinds of hours. Here are some realistic examples that are included in the KNAB tariff booklet Standing: artist 21, doctor 24, coach/trainer 19, copywriter 22, teacher 21, event manager 24, photographer 18, masseur 19, musician 19, pedicurist 23, therapist 20, interpreter/translator 21, videographer 24.
All these professions suffer greatly from the notorious ‘brain drain’. You have to take this into account when calculating your rates. So it is particularly strange that the government, via Platform ACCT, does not want to take this into account realistically when calculating rates. I recently wrote about this: Staff turnover is part of running a business and calculating rates.
Minimum threshold
Therefore, determine a minimum rate. by sector. This ensures an income that you can actually live on. Such a rate per sector can be a minimum wage, just as it exists in salaried employment. I sometimes hear people say that they are afraid that this minimum wage will become the standard. But at the moment, the standard is still much lower. Moreover, that standard has not resulted in everyone working for the minimum wage. A lower limit only indicates that if you work for lower rates, you are at real risk of poverty. That poverty has certainly risen again among self-employed persons in 2023.
Working does not always pay off
The current VBAR rate does not protect you from poverty. Yet that protection should be the goal. The Borstlap Committee already pointed this out in 2020: work must pay, regardless of the type of contract. This requires rates that reflect the reality of working in specific sectors.
You cannot prevent poverty if you work with a theoretical average that is not based on reality. This applies to the current VBAR hourly rate calculation, but most of Platform ACCT's “Fair Pay” calculations are also not based on market research into billable hours within a sector. This results in rates being calculated too low. This does not solve poverty.
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