A Job and a Sufficient Income Is Not Enough: The Needs of the Dutch Precariat

Abstract

Although lifetime employment was once commonplace, the situation has changed dramatically over the last century. The group of precarious workers has increased, and with it, the size of the precariat. Although there is a body of research on how precarious workers perceive the effect of their precarity on their social, psychological, and economic well-being, there is no research on the needs of precarious workers. In this article, we report the findings of an exploratory study about precarious worker’s needs. The findings show that the precariat has a diversity of needs, ranging from the need for a higher income to the need for a change in the discourse on self-reliance. Most of the needs are targeted toward the government and are not only related to labor. This is, however, contradictory to the ideology of downsizing the welfare state, in which governments focus on creating more temporary or steppingstone jobs. The needs show that the measures orientated toward the labor market are insufficient because they meet only a marginal part of the needs of the precariat.