Is the Holiday Allowance a Nice Bonus or a Bitter Necessity?

In the Netherlands, the holiday bonus is paid back for most workers in May or June. It was first introduced at the beginning of the last century. After World War II, the holiday bonus was introduced in addition to wages, so that the workers had money to travel. This fee is similar to the holiday allowance as we know it. It is usually at least 8% of gross salary. That is almost an entire extra month's salary.

Not only workers, but also recipients of state pension, unemployment benefit or, for example, social assistance benefits, are receiving holiday allowance. It is traditionally paid in one instalment. Whether the amount is spent wisely, is a different story.

A representative survey conducted by NU.nl among 1,372 respondents showed that a third of Dutch people use the holiday allowance mainly for which it was introduced—their holiday. 43% of these people said that without this money they couldn’t go on vacation. The amounts spent on vacations, often correspond to the amount of the holiday allowance.
Others (20%) use this money as savings and 14% of the respondents use it to pay their debts or past due accounts.
32% of the respondents spend between 501 and 2000 euros on their vacation.

Source: Nu.nl