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Market update26 August 20266 min read

Tight labour market for administrative staff: what it means for document processing

The tight labour market for administrative staff is affecting document processing more than many operations managers realise. Finding a good order processor, invoice clerk, or logistics administrator was already difficult, and there is no improvement on the horizon. Responding to that risk purely by adding headcount is a strategy the current labour market simply does not allow.

By Yeslin Beljaars

Tight labour market for administrative staff: what it means for document processing

Photo: Wesley Tingey on Unsplash

The labour market for administrative roles is structurally tight

Statistics Netherlands (CBS) consistently recorded more vacancies than unemployed workers in administrative and business operations roles throughout 2025 and early 2026. That is not a peak, it is a structural condition. The labour market is formally classified as tight when there are more than 100 vacancies per 100 job seekers, and for administrative roles in logistics, wholesale, and food, the number is well above that threshold. UWV's labour market forecasts confirm no reversal is expected any time soon: the ageing workforce is removing more people from this segment than new entrants replace. An order processor who retires today is not easily replaced.

What a shortage of administrative staff actually does to document flows

Consider a company processing 80 incoming orders, 50 invoices, and around 30 packing slips every day, all as PDFs via email. That work sits with two or three employees. One goes on long-term sick leave, another resigns. A vacancy goes out and you wait six to ten weeks. In the meantime, documents are processed later, the backlog grows, and the error rate climbs because the remaining colleague is carrying double the workload. Customers notice delays in order confirmations. On the financial side, accounts payable cycle times lengthen. This is not a theoretical risk. It is what is happening right now at dozens of companies in logistics and wholesale.

Why document processing is especially vulnerable to staff shortages

The manual work around document processing is repetitive, error-prone, and difficult to scale up or down with fluctuating workloads. It cannot easily be handed off to a temporary worker who can hit the ground running on day one: a good order processor knows your article number structure, understands how your ERP system works, and recognises exceptions. That knowledge lives in people, not in handbooks. When those people leave or are absent, the damage goes well beyond the cost of the open vacancy. This is precisely why the tight labour market for administrative staff is a driver for automating document processing, alongside the familiar ROI arguments around cost reduction.

Automation does not solve the staff shortage, but it reduces the vulnerability

To be direct: document AI such as dottle does not make people redundant. The model is always human-in-the-loop: dottle reads the document, converts it into structured data, and flags exceptions. A person approves the output. What it removes is the bulk work: retyping order numbers, quantities, addresses, and amounts from PDFs and emails. At Cabooter Group, dottle now processes more than 70,000 documents per year, with 85% processed fully automatically, resulting in savings of approximately 110,000 euros per year. That is not only a cost story. It is also a continuity story: the dependency on a small group of people who can and will do this manual work is structurally reduced. That has direct value in a labour market where you cannot always find or retain those people.

When automating document processing is not the right move

Automation is not a universal answer to staff shortages. It does not make sense when volume is too low: below roughly fifty documents per week, the investment will not pay off in the near term. It also does not make sense when the process is not defined: if every order requires individual handling because there are no fixed rules for dealing with exceptions, automation will not help. And it does not make sense when the source data is structurally poor: handwritten forms with no consistent pattern are a poor basis even for document AI. But for companies processing tens to hundreds of similar documents daily in varying formats from multiple suppliers or customers, the question is no longer whether to automate, but how quickly.

What you can do now if the administrative staff shortage is affecting your document processing

Start with an honest assessment: how many documents do you process per week, how many people handle that, and what happens if one of them leaves? If the answer is that operations are immediately at risk, that is a continuity problem you can address. Automating document processing does not require a months-long implementation project: dottle goes live in two weeks, with no setup fee, on volume-based pricing per document. It connects to the system you already use, whether that is an ERP, TMS, or accounting package. Most companies start with one document type, see what it delivers, and expand from there. That is a lower entry risk than hiring a new employee you might lose again six months down the line.

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Frequently asked questions

How tight is the labour market for administrative staff in the Netherlands?

CBS and UWV have recorded more vacancies than job seekers in administrative roles for several consecutive years. For positions such as order processor and logistics administrator, the situation is structurally tight, particularly in logistics, food, and wholesale. UWV expects the ageing workforce to keep conditions tight for the foreseeable future.

What does an administrative staff shortage mean for my document processing?

If one or two employees who manually process incoming orders, invoices, or packing slips leave or are absent, processing delays follow immediately. Customers notice this in order confirmations and deliveries. The knowledge of your systems and how to handle exceptions sits with those individuals, not in a handbook, which makes the impact larger than just the cost of an open vacancy.

Does document AI solve the administrative staff shortage?

Document AI removes the bulk work, but not the decision-making. A person still approves outputs and assesses exceptions. The gain is that manually retyping data from PDFs and emails is eliminated, meaning fewer people are needed to handle the same volume. That reduces vulnerability to absence or turnover.

When does automating document processing not make sense?

At low volume (roughly fewer than fifty documents per week), in an unstructured process without fixed rules, or when source data is consistently poor such as illegible handwritten forms, automation is not a worthwhile investment. It works best for companies with repetitive document flows in varying formats from multiple senders.