Thousands of jobs have gone at the Netherlands’ three biggest employers – the police, armed forces and Rabobank – over the past year, the Volkskrant says on Saturday.

The police, with a current workforce of some 60,000, has cut 1,000 jobs over the past 12 months. The defence ministry has reduced its workforce by 1,500 to 58,000 and Raobank has cut 3,000 jobs, the paper says.

The figures come from the Volkskrant’s annual survey of the Netherlands’ 100 biggest employers. Supermarket group Ahold and the tax office are in fourth and fifth place on the list.

The research also shows that cleaning and domestic service organisations are becoming very sizeable employers in terms of low-skilled jobs.

Three family firms, ADG Dienstengroep from Almelo, Uden based CSU and Voerendaal company Vebego now have a combined workforce of 45,000, the paper says.