The Netherlands stands out as the first nation to hit the boundaries of development

The opposite morning I cycled across the Dutch city the place I grew up. Behind our outdated home, the sphere the place I spent half my childhood is now lined with houses. So is my outdated soccer membership. My highschool is now in a built-up space. On the native prepare station, the bike shed was full on a Saturday afternoon. After I received to Amsterdam, the business-traveller financial system appeared to have damaged down: limitless waits for Ubers, no one at resort reception, eating places closed at lunchtime for need of waiters. 

I do know over-construction and understaffing at the moment are world issues, however they’re significantly acute within the Netherlands. The nation has run out of area and workers. Certain, a recession could quickly loosen the roles market, however the issue was acute pre-pandemic and can merely resurface every time development resumes. The Netherlands might be the primary nation to hit the boundaries of financial development.

Different overdeveloped locations such because the Bay Space, New York and Singapore could comply with, operating out of room for brand spanking new employees and companies. This raises the query: can a wealthy place be completely happy if its financial system stops rising? 

With hindsight, the Netherlands was too well-suited to the period of globalisation. The buying and selling nation with Europe’s largest port skilled 26 years of unbroken financial development till 2008, then a world report. Now it tops ETH Zurich’s KOF Globalisation Index because the world’s most globalised nation.

And so its inhabitants mushroomed. When the counter hit 14 million in 1979, Queen Juliana stated, “Our nation is full.” In 2010, Statistics Netherlands stated the inhabitants would most likely by no means attain 18 million. As we speak it’s 17.7 million and rising. The nation has 507 folks per sq km, practically 5 occasions the EU’s common. Worse, the amount of habitable land will shrink because of a paradoxical mixture of rising seas and droughts damaging the foundations of homes.

However the Dutch financial system’s demand for brand spanking new employees appears insatiable. Eighty-four per cent of employers report labour shortages, one authorities research discovered. Recruitment indicators are nearly customary in store home windows. Employers even supply new recruits free holidays. 

One constraint on development is that the Dutch benefit from the developed world’s shortest common work week, at simply 30.3 hours. Six employees in 10 – predominantly girls – are both part-timers or temps. The federal government is planning a bonus for anybody going full-time, however many individuals want daytime cappuccinos within the native café, assuming they will get served. Why surrender your relaxt life and everlasting contract to alleviate understaffing in old-age houses? Importing extra migrant employees isn’t a well-liked thought. In June, the far proper shouted down the minister who advised recruiting youths from poor French suburbs.

And so each development alternative hits capability constraints. I lately queued for 3 hours at Schiphol airport, world aviation’s second-biggest hub, as a result of it can not discover sufficient safety guards. The international college students flooding Dutch universities can not discover housing. Amidst an power disaster, the Dutch are closing Europe’s largest pure gasoline reserve as a result of, in a packed nation, drilling-induced earthquakes upset the neighbours.

Or take ASML, the worldwide chief in chipmaking gear. Primarily based in a small city within the comparatively quiet Dutch south-east, it’s a pillar of the western alliance within the budding confrontation with China. ASML hires tons of of recent workers each month, however simply attempt discovering them houses and babysitters. And native treehuggers have delayed ASML’s dreamt-of bike path to its headquarters.

Fantastically productive Dutch farms have made this tiny nation the world’s second-largest agricultural exporter. However a lot of its 15 million pigs and cows reside subsequent to protected pure areas, so their nitrogen emissions break EU legal guidelines. The federal government is enraging farmers by closing farms. In idea, that frees area for brand spanking new houses, however who will construct them and the place would the builders keep? In brief, to make use of Liz Truss’s language, Dutch actuality is an anti-growth coalition.

Even automation wouldn’t repair sectors like old-age care and development. Finally the nation may need to focus on “stabilisation of inhabitants dimension” by limiting labour migration, suggested the top of the Dutch labour inspectorate. The brand new State Fee Demographic Developments 2050 – and Dutch state commissions form coverage – could agree.

Does a wealthy nation want extra carbon-emitting development? “We focus far an excessive amount of on buying energy, however additional buying energy barely makes us happier,” says Sandra Phlippen, ABN Amro Financial institution’s chief economist. Nonetheless, she notes, we’ve seen lately how folks in stagnant economies “grow to be offended and unhappy”. If the boundaries of development are in sight, be careful. 

Observe Simon on Twitter @KuperSimon and e-mail him at simon.kuper@ft.com

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