The cabinet states in a Chamber letter for simplifying the system of leave arrangements.
The proposal involves clustering leave arrangements into 3 pillars:
- care for children
- care for loved ones
- personal situations
For each cluster, the parliamentary letter outlines a number of possible scenarios. The objectives are to ensure the sustainable employability of employees and to create a healthy work-life balance. A retrenchment of leave entitlements is emphatically not envisaged.
Care for children
This cluster currently includes maternity leave, (additional) birth leave for the partner, adoption leave for both parents, foster care leave for both parents, paid parental leave for both parents and unpaid parental leave for both parents.
The 5 scenarios outlined mainly concern the integration and expansion of the schemes. Consideration could be given to increasing the accessibility of the schemes by introducing a floor in the payment level.
Care for loved ones
This currently concerns the short- and long-term care leave schemes. It is proposed to integrate these into one scheme with 2 weeks of paid and 6 weeks of unpaid leave (per year) or extend it to 8 weeks of paid (70% salary continuation) leave (per year).
Personal situations
Under the current regulations, this concerns calamity and other short-term leave. As there are no signals that this regulation needs to be simplified, no scenarios have been developed. This leave can be used in very different circumstances, requiring constant customisation.