Wage subsidy

What is it? 

Wage subsidy is a compensation to the employer for an employee's loss of productivity. The municipality can provide wage subsidy for people who are less productive than others, for example, due to a work disability. The wage subsidy can also be used for school leavers from secondary special education, practical education or MBO entrance training who have already started working for an employer. 

The employee receives wages from the employer and thus builds up pension on the entire income. Wage subsidy can be used until retirement age if necessary. The employer receives wage subsidy from the municipality.

You can apply for a wage subsidy through the municipality of Kerkrade. You can contact the reintegration consultants team at gemeentehuis@kerkrade.nl or call 14 045

How does it work?

Wage subsidy can be used in the following ways:

UWV Assessment

  • A person can apply to be admitted to the target group wage subsidy. This request can only be made once every 12 months and is decided upon in writing. The municipality can also decide ex officio to admit someone to the target group.
  • Finding an employer willing to enter into an employment contract with the individual.A person may find an employer themselves, or the municipality may find a suitable place.
  • Determining the exact wage value.If necessary, the municipality can start with a lump-sum wage subsidy for the first 6 months. Prior to the wage subsidy, it is also possible to have the person in question first perform unpaid work (trial placement). This possibility is ideally suited to get used to each other, to gain work experience, but also to find out through jobcarving what suits the person concerned best. Due to the possibility of determining a fixed wage subsidy for a certain period of time, a trial placement has no function in determining the actual wage value. This no longer requires a separate application; it is done automatically.
  • Re-testing wage value (non-firm).After the wage subsidy begins, the municipality determines, in consultation with the employee and employer, when the wage value will be retested.

Practice Route

  • The person concerned has (himself) found a workplace and is already employed.
  • The employer asks the municipality to determine the person's wage value.
  • The municipality has the person's wage value determined at the workplace using a validated wage value methodology.
  • Does the wage value fall below the statutory minimum wage? Then the person concerned can be included in the target group register without an assessment by UWV. The employer is eligible for a wage subsidy for the person concerned.

The Practice Route thus ensures that it is no longer necessary for people entering through the Practice Route to be assessed twice (once for the Employment Agreement indication and once for the wage value) if they have already found a job.

Wage subsidy at the sheltered workplace

The municipality can also use wage subsidy for an employee in a sheltered workplace.

What to do.

You can apply for a wage subsidy through the municipality of Kerkrade. You can contact the reintegration consultants team at gemeentehuis@kerkrade.nl or call 14 045

Additional information

More information on wage subsidy can be read in the Regulation on Wage Subsidy Participation Act Municipality of Kerkrade 2023