Suppose there are two employees: Alice and Bob, who do the same job at the same factory. Alice has a 10 minute (20RT) commute, Bob commutes 35 minutes(70RT).
If you’re the owner of the factory, would you compensate them for their commutes? How would you do it?
Not the person you’re replying to but in the Netherlands it’s just a standard amount per KM from home to work with no compensation for travel time.
It sounds like an incentive not to hire people who live too far away from the office to me.
It’s a small country so most commutes are relatively short anyway. On average, people live within 22km of their place of work.
There’s also al lot of employers that offer other benefits or ways of compensating. Things like discounted or even free public transport, free parking, use of company cars, tax benefits when you purchase a bicycle etc.
Why? It’s just a fraction of the salary anyway. Like most people only get €0.20 per km since that is what an employer can compensate tax free. With an average one way commute in my country of 20km that’s only €8 a day for a round trip so about €160 a month.
Or a lot of people get a lease car from the company as a perk but then they don’t get compensated for their travel cost.
Why? It’s no skin off anyone’s back.
The amount is not exactly standard. There’s a maximum the employer is allowed to pay tax-free, but not every employer chooses to use that option. Some simply don’t, others stick with lower, preexisting tariffs.
It’s absolutely ridiculous of course, giving someone the maximum amount of tax free compensation is just about the cheapest way to raise wages and keep employees happy. However, the rate is not mandatory (outside of some CAOs, perhaps) and there’s no legal right to claim compensation unless there’s a contract that says you get to.