荷蘭位于歐洲的西北部。比鄰比利時，盧森堡和德國。全國被劃分為12個省。34000平方公里和大約16萬居民，從面積上看相對于其他歐盟成員國如德國，法國和西班牙是一個相當小的國家。然而，相比其他國家，人口密度為每平方公里最高，平均每平方公里470居民。首都阿姆斯特丹擁有735328居民。荷蘭的官方語言是荷蘭語，英語而被視為額外的商業(yè)語言。荷蘭經(jīng)濟的特點是作為一個開放的經(jīng)濟體系，一個高度重視對外貿(mào)易（布魯斯特等，2004）。人均GDP是目前3％的實際GDP增長速度。通貨膨脹率目前處于1.4％。(van het Kaar, 2009)

1950年后，荷蘭是天主教，新教和社會主義政黨，其中每一方都有自己的工會和政黨的明確分離。這種現(xiàn)象在荷蘭員工關(guān)系的發(fā)展中有很大的影響，因為許多妥協(xié)的立法已經(jīng)被發(fā)現(xiàn)（Ferner & Hyman, 1998）。這也涉及到創(chuàng)造到今天仍然存在的社會經(jīng)濟理事會（SER），這是一個由用人單位代表，工會代表和獨立專家組成的結(jié)構(gòu)，它是一個社會共識和妥協(xié)的勞資關(guān)系（SER，ND）。

The Netherlands are situated in the north west of Europe. Its direct neighbors are Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. The country is subdivided into twelve provinces. With a surface of around 34,000 square kilometers and around 16 million inhabitants it is a rather small country as compared to other European Union member countries such as Germany, France or Spain. However, the population density is with 470 inhabitants per square kilometer highest as compared to the Europe where the average is 118 inhabitants per square kilometer. The capital Amsterdam has 735,328 inhabitants. The national language in the Netherlands is Dutch, whereas English is considered as the additional business language. The economy in the Netherlands is characterized as an open economy with a high emphasis on foreign trade (Brewster et al., 2004). The GDP per capita is currently 131 with a real GDP growth of three percent. The inflation rate currently lies at 1.4 % (van het Kaar, 2009).

After the 1950, the Netherlands were characterized by clear separation of catholic, protestant and socialist parties, of which every party had its own trade unions and political parties. This phenomenon highly influenced the development of employee relations in the Netherlands, as many compromises in the legislation had to be found (Ferner & Hyman, 1998). This also involved the creation of the still today existing Social-Economic Council (SER) which is a council that consists of employers' representatives, union representatives and independent experts. It was conceived to find a social consensus and compromise in industrial relations (SER, n.d.).

As many other nations, the Netherlands were seriously hit by the oil crisis in 1979, which resulted in a recession characterized by a high rate of unemployment and a decline in national income and investment. Also, union membership seriously declined. However, after 1983, the country moved out of the recession and the unemployment rate declined to a more reasonable level (Ferner & Hyman, 1998). Today, the unemployment rate is with 4.6% considerably lower than the European average, although it has risen at a fast pace after the most recent economic crisis (van het Kaar, 2009). Since the 1980s, three topics have been of great interest in the Netherlands as they intensively influenced the labor relations situation: The wage moderation, the reform of the social security system and the introductionof the active employment policy. The wage moderation was introduced in order to reduce unemployment and to avoid the reduction of working time. Additionally, the wage moderation is crucial element to ensure the strong economic positions of the Netherlands, as it encompasses low labor costs which are therefore in the Netherlands are among the lowest in Europe. Within the social security reform, many benefits of for example unemployment or sickness were reduced as the costs of the social security system could not be covered anymore. Finally, the active employment policies aimed at creating more jobs and making as many people participate in the labor market as possible. Many of these policies specifically targeted underrepresented group in the workforce, like women or elderly people (Ferner & Hyman, 1998).

Today, the general employment rate of the people aged between 15 and 64 (74.8%) as well as the female employment rate is higher than the European average. These numbers can partially be explained by the particularly high amount of part-time workers in the Netherlands as compared to other European countries. Nonetheless, the gender pay gap in the Netherlands is with 18 % among the highest in Europe. Although participation in the labor market is rather high in the Netherlands, the number of self-employed people is with 6,5 % rather low in the European comparison. Considering the average rate employees keep one job, the Netherlands shows an average score of 9.9 years which corresponds to the overall European average.

Although temporary and more flexible labor contracts become more and more frequent in all European states, fixed employment contracts are still considered of major importance.

The Netherlands are one of those countries having implemented a minimum wage rate, which is differentiated for employees younger and older than 23 years. The minimum wage rate is adapted twice a year depending to collective agreements. In 2009, the minimum wage rate for employees that are 23 years old or older lay at 1398.60