Netherlands government AI cuts to central administration jobs, Digi Mart USA News: On Monday, October 26, The Hague announced the elimination of about 25,000 full-time positions in its central administration by 2035, equal to 16% of its workforce. The government’s goal is 900 million euros in annual savings from 2027 and 3.5 billion euros per year from 2035, with artificial intelligence and a major simplification of rules as the main levers.
According to the source, the plan does not affect teachers, healthcare workers, or local authorities, and police and defense are also spared. The burden falls on ministries, inspectorates and executive agencies, with some services facing cuts of up to 45% or even 60%.
There is no hiring freeze, but each departure will be reviewed.
Secretary of State Eric van der Burg wants to reduce the number of advisory bodies, which total 176, make underused offices more efficient, limit reliance on external contractors, and continue eliminating 500 unnecessary rules a year. The source argues that an across-the-board cut would never have reached 3.5 billion euros, and that giving AI assistants to employees while keeping the same approval chains and duplicate reports would produce little benefit.
The source notes that the Dutch central administration reached 160,000 full-time equivalents at the end of 2025, 41% more than in 2018, so part of the plan is a correction after that growth. It also reports that a parliament demanding 20% productivity gains from AI prompted the government to attach dated, quantified targets to its AI use.
The article adds that the United Kingdom has asked its ministries to cut operating costs by 15% by the end of the decade and has deployed a suite of tools called Humphrey since 2025. The Netherlands has a deficit of 1.8% of GDP, while the source cites France forecasting a 5.4% deficit in 2026 and debt at 121.7% in 2027.
The author states that a July joint report by three French inspectorates found real AI gains that were rarely converted into savings, and that nearly 40% of agents use AI without a framework. The source also cites the Court of Audit saying France Travail freed 205 full-time equivalents through its AI program.
The author proposes a goal of cutting 10% of the more than 700,000 French public-sector posts highly exposed to AI by 2035, roughly 70,000 jobs, through non-replaced departures, excluding teachers, health workers, police, gendarmes and the military. The author estimates this could save about 4 billion euros a year at an average cost of about 55,000 euros per agent.
The article acknowledges that the Dutch AI-driven welfare system once wrongly accused about 26,000 families of fraud, a scandal that contributed to the fall of a government in 2021. The author argues that safeguards and human supervision are necessary, and that doing nothing carries its own certain cost.
