Sittard / The Hague –
According to the Labor Inspectorate, the Netherlands must stop attracting migrant workers. ‘Employers and employment agencies benefit, while the costs are borne by society.’ Limburg is both applauded and criticized.
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Rits de Boer, Inspector General of the Dutch Labor Inspectorate, is sending out a strong signal with his reflection in the annual report. The choice to bring even more workers to the Netherlands will result in ‘increasingly miserable living situations’, he writes. ‘At the same time, the problems in the housing market and in the area of inequality, nitrogen and climate only increase as the size of the population (and therefore the economy) increases’.
Giel Braun, chairman of the Limburg employers, agrees with De Boer to a certain extent. “If we bring people here unchecked, without policies in the areas of housing, language, education, integration and living together, then labor migration is indeed a deadly path.”
Rotten apples
Frank van Gool, CEO of the Otto Work Force employment agency in Venray, believes that the Inspectorate mainly gives itself a certificate of incapacity with its harsh statements. “She is apparently not in control. Instead of taking the bad apples out of the tree, they cut down the whole tree. Migrant workers remain necessary for our prosperity. But regulate and control the influx.”
“Provide legislation, do not just bring in just anyone, especially fill the gaps with acute personnel shortages and ensure that the labor migrants only stay here temporarily, say five years,” adds Van Gool. “In those five years they can develop personally, gain work experience and continue to build the economy in their native country with a bag of money in their pocket.”
Also read: How does Limburg become attractive for labor migrants?
Abuses often get publicity. “I have to constantly explain that we are doing well. It is important to get the bad apples out. I have been advocating certified housing for years. The government now wants to arrange this before 2025. Well, that takes way too long.”
Vision
The government and the European Commission want to make it easier for people from outside the EU to work here. “The Dutch government shouts a lot,” says Giel Braun, “but it also attracts the wrong people, the fortune seekers. The Netherlands cannot be an unbridled labor migration country. We now have over 17 million inhabitants. More than 50,000 new immigrants arrived in the first quarter of this year alone. By 2025 we will have about 20 million inhabitants. That requires vision and that is not there at the moment.”
The number of labor migrants in Limburg is approximately 80,000 and will increase towards 120,000 by 2030. Almost half of the employees are unregistered.
Migrant workers continue to be needed, in view of the large staff shortages in the agricultural sector, industry, construction, transport, logistics and technology. “But don’t just get them from all over the world. There is still plenty of potential in Western and Eastern Europe,” Braun argues.
Limburg
Limburg employers, the province and municipalities drew up a ‘vision for international employees in Limburg’ six months ago. “We are leading the way in this,” says Braun. Key points from that vision: housing for labor migrants must be certified and employment conditions in accordance with the Dutch collective labor agreements. “We do not want employees to be paid via Cyprus, for example, because that is cheaper. Shady constructions lead to dissatisfaction, disobedience and nuisance.”
In the fight to tackle rogue employers and prevent labor exploitation, it is sometimes ‘mopping with the tap’, notes the Labor Inspectorate. Legislation also regularly hinders a decisive approach to labor exploitation.
That and the ‘extensive supply of cheap foreign personnel’ means that companies feel little incentive to innovate or improve working conditions, says Rits de Boer. “The Netherlands therefore needs to ‘consider’ the question of which labor market we actually want, which activities belong and which do not.”
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