Robots and computerisation will lead to the loss of between two million and three million Dutch jobs over the next decades, acccording to research by accountancy group Deloitte.

In particular, admin and lower level service jobs will disappear as fruit pickers, post sorters and book-keepers are replaced by machines and computers, Deloitte says.

Youngsters and students with a part-time job will be especially hard hit. This is because they tend to do repetitive work which can easily be done by robots, the report said.

Deloitte bases its research on an Oxford University study on the US market and has translated it into the Dutch situation, broadcaster Nos said.

Minister

On Monday social affairs minister Lodewijk Asscher warned that many jobs will disappear because of automisation.

This is likely to have an adverse effect on jobs for the lower and middle classes, according to the minister, and it is essential that ‘technology goes hand-in-hand with a fair distribution of the resulting wealth’.

The government must not simply accept the fact that much work currently done by people will be done by machines, he said.