NWCS-COVID-19

TNO, together with Statistics Netherlands, annually monitor the employment situation of workers in the Netherlands through the Netherlands Working Conditions Survey (NWCS).

The NWCS is an annual measurement of a new group of representative employees in the Netherlands. The NWCS monitors changes in work and the working conditions of Dutch employees and the consequences of those changes for their health, sustainable employability, productivity and innovative behavior.

In 2020, working life has changed for many Dutch employees due to the sudden emergence of COVID-19. The government was forced to take measures, which had direct consequences for the Dutch working population (and still have in 2021).

TNO started the NWCS-COVID-19 cohort study in order to gain insight into the effects and consequences of the COVID-19 crisis at work. The aim of this cohort is to obtain more information on the employment situation in 2020 and 2021, and to be able to make a comparison with the situation in 2019.

With this information, we can accurately map out the consequences for employees regarding their working conditions, health and other specific indicators during the COVID-19 pandemic (including exposure risks, general measures and measures taken by the employer).

In our analyses, we distinguish between three groups of employees. There are employees who have largely started working from home, workers who have continued to work on location (with an increased risk of infection), and individuals who (temporarily) have become unemployed.

This reading guide is intended as a methodological account of the NWCS-COVID-19 cohort. The cohort consists of four waves (November 2019 (per-COVID-19), June-July 2091, October-November 2020 and March 2021). Section 2 presents the methodological part of the cohort, including a report on the collection and processing of data. In Section 3, all variables are presented and described. Section 4 contains the global results of the NWCS-COVID-19 cohort (in tabular form), based on the measurement performed in 2021. The results of the measurement performed in previous waves are available on request (only in Dutch).

More information about the NWCS-COVID-19 study and the results can be found on the NWCS-COVID-19 page.

Click below to download the reading guide