Supermarkets and small retailers plan to introduce a new four-year contract for staff which includes a budget for training. The aim, employers and unions say, is to increase workers’ chances at finding work later on while at the same time providing flexible staff for retailers.

At the moment some 300,000 people work in supermarkets and small retailers, such as greengrocers and butchers. Most are younger than 23 and have contracts for a year with a maximum of 12 hours a week. Just 25% to 30% have a permanent contract, the Volkskrant said.

The new contract, which is the result of a drive by unions and employers to innovate working conditions in the retail sector, is filling a gap between fixed contracts and short-term contracts and is aimed at students who have not found a job yet, job hoppers, and older and unemployed people.

‘If properly organised the four-year contract can help improve people’s working conditions, and not only in the retail sector. This scheme gives them a chance to be in work for a longer period while at the same time helping them to take the step to the next job,’  Tilburg professor of labour market studies Ton Wilthagen told the paper.

There is a risk, however, that in future the sector will only offer four-year contracts because fixed contracts are much more expensive. The social partners will have to find a way around this, Wilthagen said.