Dutch rally to the call of naturism

The Dutch have taken the concept of dress-down Friday to another level by advertising for naked call centre workers in a bid to recruit hard-to-find staff.

With its multi-lingual workforce, favourable tax regime and relatively liberal employment laws, the Netherlands is a popular place to site pan-European call centres and contact centres.

However, as the market grows, new entrants have found it hard to recruit staff, and an unnamed Dutch call centre has taken extreme measures.

An ad placed in the Dutch daily De Telegraaf offered new staff the chance to work in
the nude, according to Reuters.

The ad has worked wonders, attracting a flood of highly-qualified applicants, said the company, which declined to be named to spare the blushes of existing clients.

"In an office job like a call centre worker, it doesn't matter what you wear because the client does not see you. It's a small step from there to working naked," the company said in a statement.

Once the new applicants start work, the company is planning to launch the naked arm of the business as a separate unit, under the name "Au Nature Telesales".