Local councils and civil service unions have agreed new rules making it cheaper to sack under-performing staff, the Volkskrant reports.

Some 200,000 people work in local government. Civil servants who lose their jobs get generous extra pay-outs on top of their unemployment benefit and these payments are set to be reduced sharply, the paper says.
Sacking a civil servant costs some €33,000, double that of a private sector worker, the paper says. More details will be worked out on Friday.