Latest trends in PHS development

In the past weeks, the latest figures on the personal and household services’ development have been published in Belgium, France and Sweden.

The Federal Public Service Employment, Labour and Social Dialogue published its annual assessment of the Belgian Service voucher system for the year 2012. It reveals that there were in 2012:

• 151 137 workers representing 98 035 FTE jobs and 4.3% of all employments in Belgium,
• 899 558 users corresponding to 18.9% of Belgian households, 
• 2 753 providers.

Latest figures on the Swedish RUT tax scheme have revealed a continuous increase of the system. The total value of household services bought within the system rises from SEK 240 million in 2007 to SEK 4.8 billion in 2013 (around € 541 million). Thus in 2013:

• the number of users reached 537 613 in 2013 (+9.3% compared to 2012),
• 16 316 people were working in the sector (+11% compared to 2012) thus representing 10 877 FTE jobs,
• the number of companies has grown by 2 % compared to 2012.

Finally, figures published in March 2014 revealed that the number of French household employers have decreased by 3.2% in 2013. After a 4.4% decrease in 2012, the total number of working hours reported kept its downward trend with a 6.1% decrease in 2013. Actors considers that this decrease is due to the recent reforms such as the removal of the flat-rate social contribution and the lowering of the overall ceiling tax shelter. In consequence they fear an increase of undeclared work in the PHS sector.

EFSI recalls that supporting measures implemented to foster the job creation potential of the PHS sector and the transition from the informal to the formal economy must be stable on the medium and long-term run in order to ensure an appropriate and successful development of the sector.