Employment among individuals with work disabilities before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands: results of a longitudinal cohort study.

Objectives: This study investigates the longitudinal trajectory of employment prospects, before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic for individuals with work disabilities in the Netherlands. Methods: We conducted a longitudinal cohort study using monthly administrative data between 2018 and 2022 on work and income from all Dutch individuals with a registered work disability in December 2019. Monthly employment probabilities were modelled with longitudinal multivariate Generalised Estimating Equations analysis, where the dependent binomial variable was 'employment status'. Employment prospects in permanent versus flexible contracts were estimated as two potential outcomes. We stratified our analyses by sex, age, educational attainment, migration background and sector. Results: Our cohort consisted of 476 617 individuals. Employment probabilities gradually increased between 2018 and 2019, but substantially decreased in the year of the COVID-19 pandemic, mainly in flexible contracts. Strikingly, these downturns took place before the start of lockdowns in March 2020. Especially older aged workers (55-63 year) and workers with lower educational attainment were confronted with a lower likelihood of being employed during the first year of the pandemic. Conclusions: Our results suggest that the lower employment probabilities seem not to be solely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is likely that the introduction of new Dutch regulations for employers, effective from 1 January 2020, has strongly decreased the number of workers with work disabilities in flexible contracts. Further research will need to determine whether such effects align with those in the total working population or were restricted to individuals with work disabilities.