Dutch people are living longer and working longer as well. Unfortunately, that is not always good for health. To keep employees healthy and motivated until their retirement age, the MDIEU subsidy is provided, also known as the Customized Scheme for Sustainable Employability & Early Retirement.

In this article, we explain exactly what the subsidy is for, what you can apply for with the MDIEU scheme, and how you can effectively shape sustainable employability within your organization.

What is the MDIEU scheme?

The MDIEU scheme can be summarized as a government initiative for the sustainable employability of the Dutch workforce. Part of the scheme specifically aims to support employees in physically demanding jobs to give them the opportunity to retire earlier.

What does MDIEU stand for?

The MDIEU scheme is also known as the MDIEU subsidy and is a temporary subsidy scheme from the Dutch government that runs from 2021 to 2025. MDIEU stands for Customized Scheme for Sustainable Employability & Early Retirement. The MDIEU scheme can be divided into two parts.

The first part, MDI, stands for Customized Scheme for Sustainable Employability. That already reveals a bit about what this part of the scheme is set up for: to improve the sustainable employability of employees. Sustainable employability means that efforts are made to keep employees employable until their retirement. Because the world is changing and so are the roles of some employees, even if the title remains the same.

Various activities are central to sustainable employability, including:

• Physical health of employees, to prevent absenteeism and burnout;

• Introducing new working methods and practices;

• Short training sessions to keep knowledge up to date;

• Safety in the workplace;

• Personal development that stimulates motivation;

• Taking leave.

The MDIEU program provides financial support to stimulate this. The subsidy covers up to 50% of the costs.

The second part of MDIEU, EU, stands for 'Early Retirement'. The subsidy can also be used to allow older employees who do physically demanding work to leave employment earlier, so that they can retire healthy as well. This part of the subsidy can cover up to 25% of the costs for the payment to the employee. As an employer, you must meet certain requirements to qualify for the subsidy:

• There is heavy work involved and it is clear which group(s) of employees do this work;

• The offer to stop working earlier is made to a clearly defined group – not to everyone;

• The employment contract is fully terminated;

• The employees stop a maximum of 3 years before they reach their retirement age;

• The employee voluntarily stops working earlier;

• The employee cannot claim unemployment benefits but receives a monthly agreed payment from the employer;

• The monthly payments for the employees who stop are subsidized up to the maximum exempt amount. The part of the amount above that is the cost for the employer.

Who can apply for MDIEU?

The MDIEU subsidy is intended for all Dutch companies that want to employ workers sustainably and to give older employees who perform heavy work the chance to stop working earlier.

The scheme is for various individual companies, industries, and sectors. There are no rules about which companies can and cannot apply for the subsidy. However, it is mandatory for companies to conduct a business analysis. And that can be quite a task. Not necessarily too labor-intensive, but important to take into account.

The business analysis for the MDIEU subsidy

The business analysis is the starting point for improving the sustainable employability of your employees. It is a mandatory step for the subsidy application. You can find the specific requirements in the ‘format business analysis’, but we can already tell you that the business analysis must include the following:

• The business analysis describes the bottlenecks regarding sustainable employability and possibly early retirement;

• The business analysis answers the question what can be done to solve the bottlenecks;

• You can conduct the business analysis yourself or outsource it;

• The business analysis consists of:

• General information about the labor organization and the sector;

• A substantiation of the size and composition of the number of employees and other workers;

• Description of the bottlenecks related to sustainable employability and heavy work;

• Description of employee representation involvement.

If real action is taken as a result of the analysis, you may be eligible for €5,000 compensation for the costs of the business analysis. This is a fixed amount, so you do not need to prove what the implementation of the business analysis has cost.

What are the conditions of the MDIEU scheme?

• There are a number of conditions that organizations must meet to apply for the subsidy for sustainable employment of employees.

• Currently, there is a minimum subsidy amount of €75,000 that can be requested.

• The subsidy applicant must also adhere to the indicated application periods. These are, for example, the periods:

  • September 1 to November 30, 2023

  • April 2024 and September 2024

• The subsidy covers a maximum of 50% of the costs for sustainable employability, 25% for the costs associated with early retirement, and €5,000 for the business analysis.

• There are two subsidy pots:

  • There is €7.5 million available for applications up to €300,000 subsidy.

  • There is €75 million for applications of €300,000 subsidy and more.

• Different conditions apply for the RVU (for early retirement), which can be found on this page.

What is the RVU subsidy?

The RVU subsidy is related to the MDIEU subsidy and stands for Early Retirement Regulation. This scheme can be offered to employees so that they can stop working earlier, but has different conditions than the MDIEU scheme. RVU subsidy is not related to sustainable employability. The RVU subsidy is particularly intended for sectors where employees have entered service early and where physically demanding work is performed. Employees cannot always continue doing the same work until retirement. After all, everyone gets older.

Instead of someone dropping out, someone can exit earlier thanks to the RVU subsidy. Whether the work someone performs is considered heavy work must be demonstrable. The RVU subsidy can be seen as a healthy bridge to retirement age, just like the 'Early Retirement' part of the MDIEU.

Using MDIEU subsidy through Alleo

Alleo helps in the effective use of the MDIEU subsidy. Our platform is for employee rewards and flexible secondary employment benefits, also known as 'benefits'. We have more than 250 offering partners that can be targeted to shape sustainable employability within your organization.

How, exactly? By allowing employees to select offers that support their health and development in the way they need. With more than 100,000 courses for professional and personal development, along with an extensive vitality offering of more than 10,000 sports locations, this should work out just fine. But that’s not all. Through Alleo you can further:

• Offer secondary employment benefits across nine categories, including wellbeing, development, mobility, and food;

• Individually specify where you want employees to have access to and where they should not;

• Provide a flexible choice package for your employees that can support them in various ways;

• Leave the administration to us, as we are your only billing partner, no matter how many benefits your employees choose.