Employee Insurance Agency working satisfactorily, but the future is less certain

Changing political ambitions frustrate mediation on job market

Despite many changes in policies and spending cuts, the Employee Insurance Agency (UWV) has successfully performed its core tasks of providing benefit payments to the unemployed, the ill and the occupationally disabled, of making sociomedical assessments and of managing the associated data. This is a commendable achievement. But the same cannot be said of the UWV’s efforts to help people find work. Its performance of this task has been frustrated by changing political ambitions for its role in mediating between the jobless and the job market. To safeguard the UWV’s future, it is first necessary to professionalise the management of the Agency by the Minister of SZW and the UWV’s Board.