There Are No Numbers Without Intent.

When we say that in 2024 the Dutch government employed over 1.1 million FTEs, we are not simply citing statistics. We are revealing a strategic shift in the architecture of the state. A 16% increase in government labor volume over seven years is not drift. It’s design, or at least, inertia so strong it mimics it.

The numbers may be dry. But the movement behind them is not. What changed? Why now? And what does this teach us, especially those of us leading companies who still cling to the illusion that the market and the state are separate realms?

Let’s peel the layers.

From Retrenchment to Regrowth: A Tale of Two Sevens.

Between 2011 and 2017, government labor shrank—FTEs fell as austerity tightened post-credit crisis. Central government, municipalities, and education all contracted. It was a state on a diet, trimming fat and sometimes flesh in response to global financial trauma.

But from 2018 onwards, the pendulum swung back. By 2024, the state had regained and surpassed what it lost.

• +54,000 FTEs in education (+15%)
• +51,000 in central government (+30%)
• +28,000 in municipalities (+18%)

In raw labor terms, this means 154,000 more full-time equivalents, a shift that echoes the reawakening of the state’s ambitions, responsibilities, and, perhaps, its self-image.

Is this just demographics? Policy? Response to complex times?

Yes, but also no.

The “Why” Behind the Workforce.

Governments grow when the system gets harder to navigate, digitally, legally, socially. When risk rises, so does bureaucracy. When crises multiply (climate, war, pandemics, cyber), so does the call for coordination, control, and care.

Subsidized education grew because we need more educators for a complex, multilingual, digitally native generation.

The central government swelled to manage cybersecurity, welfare complexity, and regulatory enforcement.

Municipalities expanded to deal with social support, housing, and integration challenges.

And let's not forget the silent contributors:

• Police, ProRail, water boards, and provinces, all rising slowly but steadily.
• Other institutions, 177,800 FTEs in 2024, quietly absorbing outsourced responsibilities that were once seen as temporary.

This is not accidental. It is structural.

Bureaucratic Mass and the Cost of Coordination.

In 2024, government compensation surpassed €97 billion, 19.6% of total spending, stable for years.

Yet, this stability hides a transformation in distribution and value perception.

Let me explain.

Most labor sits in subsidized education (36%), followed by central government (20%) and municipalities (16%). But look at the remuneration per hour:

• Central government and provinces top the list, above €60/hour.
• Social workshops and joint arrangements are at the bottom, often below €40/hour.

This isn’t just about fairness, it’s about function. Higher salaries cluster where the complexity is highest. The further up you go into regulatory or policy-intensive roles, the more the system rewards technical mastery, strategic pressure, and political exposure.

But herein lies a dangerous curve: when money flows to those who coordinate instead of those who deliver, the system risks becoming top-heavy. Governance must not outpace service.

For Entrepreneurs, This Is Not Background Noise.

If you lead a company, this isn’t someone else’s spreadsheet. This is your context. You are not competing only with other companies. You're now competing with public sector jobs for talent, meaning, and purpose.

Think about it:

• Governments can offer stability, pensions, social contribution.
• Private firms must offer innovation, culture, and freedom.
• But increasingly, both must offer meaning.

And the government, especially in times of polycrisis, is playing on that field with full force.

If your strategy ignores the labor pull of the state, you are playing blindfolded.

The Moral Shape of Numbers.

1.1 million FTEs is not just a statistic, it’s a mirror. It reflects what we, as a society, have chosen to invest in. Education, public order, administration, infrastructure. But it also reflects what the private sector has, at times, abdicated: long-term vision, risk-sharing, collective scaffolding.

It is neither good nor bad that the state grows. What matters is how consciously it grows, and whether we, entrepreneurs, policy-makers, citizens, force clarity into that growth.

Because bureaucracy is like concrete: it can build bridges or weigh you down. The difference lies in intention, architecture, and ethics.

And in governance, as in life, ethics without structure is a wish. Structure without ethics is a weapon.

We must insist on both.