Hospitality, cleaning, retail and healthcare companies will be faced with sharply higher wage bills this year, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Friday.

The paper says changes in the way income tax and other premiums are calculated mean they will have to pay more unemployment benefit (ww) premiums than last year.
For example, since January 1, employers have had to pay 1.7% in jobless benefit premiums on the first €17,000 of earnings. This, the paper says, hits some sectors harder than others because they employ many low-paid staff.
Health insurance
Employers have always paid premiums on earnings above that figure, but the government wants to spread the levy over an entire salary.
In addition, employers have to pay increased health insurance premiums on behalf of their workers. This has gone up from 7.1% to 7.75%, the paper says.
The retail and hospitality sector associations expect wage costs to rise between 1% and 2.5% this year, partly due to the tax changes.
Wage costs rose by an average 2.2% last year, the national statistics office CBS said earlier this week.