Low percentage of highly skilled migrants working in the Dutch labour force

A recent report by the Central Bureau of Statistics, commissioned by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, looked at how much is the Netherlands able to get and keep foreign talent in the form of highly skilled migrants, NOS reports.

The Netherlands has always been a cosmopolitan country, and highly skilled migrants have played an important role in its society, culture and history since the Dutch Golden Age. How is the country faring nowadays in this matter?

What do the statistics say?

The report shows that over 4% of the Dutch labour force is formed of highly skilled migrants, with an average number of 383,000 people, who are either highly skilled or are general international job seekers.

There’s been an overall increase if one looks at the trends over the past 15 years, with an increase from 2,7 to 4,2% of the highly skilled migrants working in the labour force.

In comparison to nearby countries, the United Kingdom has a share of their respective labour force made out of 9% highly skilled migrants, while Belgium has a share of 7%. The top of the list Luxembourg, where a whopping 25% of the labour force is formed out of highly skilled migrants.  The lowest-ranked on the list is Finland, with only 2%. The Netherlands comes only as second lowest, after Finland.

What do the highly-skilled migrants in the Netherlands do?

A majority of the highly skilled migrants work in the service sectors, in jobs ranging from managerial positions to technicians. Two-thirds of them work at a high-level professionally. As with the general trend within the Dutch labour force, many of them work independently, with the highest percentage of independent highly skilled migrants in the report, at 20%. A lot of the independent workers can usually be found in commercial services.

Places of origin of highly skilled migrants

The report shows that quite a lot of the migrants come from outside Europe. South America is one of the highest places of origin of the migrants, usually Suriname and the Antilles, which is understandable given the colonial past of the Netherlands with these countries.

Overall, the country wishes to implement new policies to attract even more foreign talent, in order to have an impact on research and innovation in the Netherlands.

Should the Netherlands do more to attract foreign talent? Let us know in the comments.

Feature Image: Free-Photos/Pixabay

 

 

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