The average retirement age of employees in the Netherlands is approaching 66 years, reports the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). In 2023, 86,000 employees retired. The average retirement age was 65 years and eleven months, which was three months higher than in 2022.
From 2013 onwards, the average retirement age of employees will approximately keep pace with the state pension age. Partly due to the increase in the state pension age, the retirement age of employees is increasing. Only in 2021 was the retirement age slightly lower than a year earlier, according to Statistics Netherlands.
In 2023, almost three-quarters of employees will be 65 years or older at the time of retirement. That was still 43 percent in 2013. In 2003, only 14 percent were 65 or older at the time of retirement. At that time, people could still make use of early retirement schemes, which were largely stopped after 2006. In 2003, almost three-quarters of employees were younger than 62 at the time of retirement. In 2023 that was less than 6 percent.
After relatively strong increases in the number of retirees in 2020 and 2021, the number of retirees remained stable at approximately 3.3 million in 2022 and 2023. Due to population growth, the share of retirees among the total population decreased slightly to more than 18 percent in 2023.
Statistics Netherlands further notes that the share of retirees among people over 55 has declined almost continuously every year since the beginning of the century. According to the statistics office, this is due to the increased labor participation among the elderly. In 2023, fewer than 54 percent of people over 55 were retired, compared to more than 62 percent at the beginning of the century.
