We recently had some strikes in the cleaning sector here in The Netherlands. The workers were fed up with their poor wages combined with the long hours.

And the need for getting more people to work has not been this high for a long time, thanks to the current state of crisis.

What struck me is that most cleaners were people that worked more than one job and still were having trouble to make ends meet.

At the same time the government has trouble to get people of unemployment and in to jobs.
This is partially because it has become way to difficult to lay off workers if it turns out to be impossible to keep them on.

Especially with smaller companies it has become too difficult.

If it were easier to lay off people it would also be easier to hire them. And I think that most employers would be more then happy to pay higher wages for people that could be let go if the work runs out.

So what about this:

Create a second minimum wage which is quite a bit higher than the current one.
People that want to earn this higher wage have to give up their rights to benefits at the current level. Instead they get much, much more basic benefits like just some kind of roof over their heads and food.

Put some restrictions in place so that people can not keep on switching between the two and see if that has any effect on the way employment in the Netherlands work.

I wonder what that would do to employment!