Earlier this year, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo prompted a storm of controversy when he claimed that his fellow Belgians need to "fight and work" harder to ensure the nation's long-term economic prosperity.
But a flurry of recent reports suggests that De Croo may have been onto something. According to a study published on Wednesday by Eurostat, the EU's official statistics office, Belgians work on average 36 hours and 54 minutes per week – 36 minutes less than the European average.
The study also noted that Belgians work fewer hours than their southern neighbours, including the French (37 hours and 24 minutes) and Luxembourgers (38 hours and 6 minutes).
However, Belgians were found to work substantially more than Germans (35 hours and 18 minutes) and Dutch (33 hours and 12 minutes); the latter work the least time of all Europeans.
The Eurostat findings contrast with some popular preconceptions: across the EU as a whole it is Greeks who work the most (41 hours). They are followed by Poles (40 hours and 24 minutes) and then Romanians and Bulgarians (40 hours and 12 minutes).
The average number of hours worked per week in the EU has fallen 48 minutes since Eurostat first began collecting data in 2008. By contrast, Belgians' average working time in 2008 was the same as it is today.
Life's labour lost
Adding further weight to De Croo's claims, Belgians not only work fewer hours than most other Europeans – the proportion of the population that does work is also below average.
BNP Paribas Fortis, Belgium's largest bank, graded Belgium 36 out of 100 in its most recent labour market index, well below the Netherlands (70) and Germany (58), although slightly above France (29).
BNP Chief Economist Koen De Leus told L'Echo that Belgium's relatively poor score reflected the fact that only 75.4% of the country's working-age population is currently employed – below the EU average of 76.7% and well beneath the Federal Government's official target of 80%.
"What is unique in Europe is that we combine this low employment rate with a much higher than average sickness rate and a much higher degree of disability." Addressing the country's low employment rate would be the most promising way for Belgium to improve its economic resilience, De Leus argues: "This handicap could be our best asset. If we could even join the European average, it would hugely benefit our economic growth."
Low labour market participation was also cited as a key reason for Belgium's relatively poor performance in the bank's 'Future Proof' index, which assesses countries' long-term economic resilience. Ranked 17th of the 27 EU Member States in the index, Belgium is far below most of its neighbours, with the Netherlands 2nd, Luxembourg 9th, and Germany 10th.
Taxing incentives
In a recent interview with The Brussels Times, Associate Professor of Economics at Ghent University Stijn Baert explained that Belgium's low labour market participation is primarily a consequence of its high labour taxes, which Baert says not only discourage workers from seeking gainful employment but also deter many companies from creating jobs in Belgium in the first place.
"For workers, high labour taxes make employment less attractive because their tax-home pay is lower. Meanwhile, higher labour taxes encourage employers to automate jobs or move them to other countries."
Baert's comments followed a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a group of mostly rich countries, which found that Belgium's labour "tax wedge" (which measures the difference between workers' before-tax and after-tax wages) is the highest among OECD nations.
In particular, the study found that Belgium's labour tax wedge is the largest in the OECD for single people without children and for families with two earners and two children, and the third highest for families with a single earner and two children.
