Working students top record 500,000 in Belgium

Working students top record 500,000 in Belgium

The number of students doing temporary jobs topped 500,000 in 2016, for the first time ever in Belgium, according to figures from the National Social Security Office, ONSS, quoted on Monday by the Union of Self-Employed Entrepreneurs,UNIZO, and the human resources service provider ADMB. “Student work continues to experience a continuous boom since the in-depth reforms to the system in 2012,” UNIZO and ADMB said on the occasion of the designation of the “Working student of the year” in Flanders. They noted that companies love taking on students since that offers them stability at less cost.

In 2016, a total of 502,297 students worked under “student occupation contracts”, a 4.9% increase compared to 2015. They worked a total of almost 11.8 million days, 6.5% more than the previous year. The number of employers taking on students increased by 4.9%, reaching 56,607, and they paid out a total of 885 million euros in remuneration to student workers, an increase of 8.5% over 2015.

On average, each student worked an average of 23.4 days last year for a gross salary of 1,763 euros, from which a social security contribution of 2.71% was deducted.

The average student worker is about 20 years old, with just 2% aged 27 years or older. According to figures from the administration, Belgium has 14 student workers aged 65 years or older.


The Brussels Times


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