THE CRUNCH
The Dutch cabinet has announced plans to eliminate 25,000 full-time government jobs by 2035 as part of a cost-cutting and efficiency drive that will lean on AI to raise productivity. The cuts are expected to save 900 million euros, roughly $1 billion, by 2027, rising to 3.5 billion euros, about $3.9 billion, by 2035.
Not every agency is affected: police and defence are excluded from the plan. State secretary Eric van der Burg told the Dutch parliament in a letter that the effort is meant to make the government "simpler, smart and smaller."
How AI will actually be deployed to reduce costs remains unclear. The cabinet says it will "come up with goals and savings plans for deploying AI to work more productively" in the first quarter of 2027. Dutch news outlets had reported earlier this year that the government was planning to incorporate AI into its savings efforts, and van der Burg has said he wants to "apply AI even more broadly" after several AI initiatives were already established across government sectors.