Woman who held three full-time jobs ordered to repay €73K

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A woman who fell sick while holding down three full-time jobs at once has been ordered to repay €73,000 in earnings she received while on leave.

The woman, a single mother with two children, started working as a data scientist for Henkel, the company behind products including Persil washing powder and Schwartzkopf shampoo, in September 2021, earning €5,000 a month.

Six months later she went on sick leave. The company continued paying her wages, but when she applied for state sick pay after the end of the statutory two-year period it was told she had been working since January 2022 for adhesives manufacturer Avery Dennison.

Further investigations revealed that she had also taken a full-time apprenticeship with ABN Amro bank in January and was working on a casual basis for the VU university in Amsterdam. Altogether her commitments added up to 120 hours a week.

She told the district court in Amsterdam she had told Henkel about her other positions and there was no conflict between her duties. But in a judgment published last week, the judge described her version of events as “utterly unbelievable” and ordered her to pay Henkel €73,000 compensation.

The court said in its ruling that the woman should have known that she would not be able to dedicate herself to three full-time jobs in addition to her duties as a mother. “This is shown by the fact that the woman went on sick leave,” the judgment stated.

It added she would have to negotiate with her former employer how she repaid the money, since it “cannot be assumed she can pay the amount immediately”.