爱尔兰留学生作业范文

荷兰位于欧洲的西北部。比邻比利时，卢森堡和德国。全国被划分为12个省。34000平方公里和大约16万居民，从面积上看相对于其他欧盟成员国如德国，法国和西班牙是一个相当小的国家。然而，相比其他国家，人口密度为每平方公里最高，平均每平方公里470居民。首都阿姆斯特丹拥有735328居民。荷兰的官方语言是荷兰语，英语而被视为额外的商业语言。荷兰经济的特点是作为一个开放的经济体系，一个高度重视对外贸易（布鲁斯特等，2004）。人均GDP是目前3％的实际GDP增长速度。通货膨胀率目前处于1.4％。(van het Kaar, 2009)

1950年后，荷兰是天主教，新教和社会主义政党，其中每一方都有自己的工会和政党的明确分离。这种现象在荷兰员工关系的发展中有很大的影响，因为许多妥协的立法已经被发现（Ferner & Hyman, 1998）。这也涉及到创造到今天仍然存在的社会经济理事会（SER），这是一个由用人单位代表，工会代表和独立专家组成的结构，它是一个社会共识和妥协的劳资关系（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