Dutch Cabinet Plans to Help 75,000 Asylum Status-Holders into Work Over Four Years
Work minister wants to remove obstacles such as long procedures, language barriers and unrecognised foreign diplomas. Only one in five status-holders has a job within two years of getting their permit
The Dutch cabinet has announced a plan to help 75,000 more asylum status-holders (former asylum seekers who have been granted the right to stay) find work in the Netherlands over the next four years. VVD minister of work and participation Thierry Aartsen sent the plans to the Tweede Kamer on Friday, calling it a chance both to give newcomers a better start and to relieve pressure on sectors that are crying out for workers.
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The gap the plan tries to close
Of the status-holders who received a residence permit in 2021, only around 21 percent had a job after two years. After more years that number rises to around 57 percent, but it still falls well below the Dutch average of about 81 percent. According to the ministry of social affairs, around 75 percent of newcomers in their first years of inburgering (civic integration) do not work, with many of them dependent on bijstand (social assistance).
“As soon as someone arrives in the Netherlands, they should go to work and learn the language. That should be the starting point, but right now it is not,” Aartsen said. “It is really a missed opportunity if we leave talent unused. We need everyone, urgently, on the labour market. Everyone can do something, and everyone has talents. By working, you also build an independent life faster as a newcomer, you learn the language and you contribute to our society.”
Long procedures and language barriers
The diagnosis comes from earlier reports, in particular by the Algemene Rekenkamer (the Court of Audit) earlier this year. It concluded that status-holders struggle to find work because of long procedures, language obstacles and the lack of recognised qualifications. Combining paid work with language lessons is difficult, the Rekenkamer found, and there is also a shortage of language teachers. Many newcomers can speak some Dutch but not enough to meet the language requirements many employers set.
One of the Rekenkamer’s recommendations was to allow language learning on the workplace. The ministry says it will discuss exactly that with employers in the coming months.
Start-jobs and easier recognition of foreign diplomas
The plan brings together several initiatives. A central role is reserved for so-called “startbanen” (start-jobs), short, structured first jobs that newcomers can take up shortly after being placed in a municipality. The aim is to combine work with language learning and integration from the start, rather than treating them as separate steps. More than 80 municipalities are now expected to take part. Pilots since 2023 in Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Eindhoven and other cities found that 44 percent of participants ended up in work.
The cabinet is also working on a faster track to recognise foreign qualifications and work experience. Many status-holders have diplomas, work experience or a profession, but their qualifications are not automatically valid in the Netherlands. The plan would, where possible, accept relevant work experience or training from the country of origin against Dutch standards, instead of forcing newcomers back to school for years.
A separate focus on women
A second major strand of the plan focuses specifically on women. Between 2014 and 2024, around 70,000 women received a residence status in the Netherlands. Only around 22 percent of them are currently in paid work, against just under half of male status-holders. To narrow that gap, ten municipalities will pilot a tailored approach aimed at women, which the ministry says will tackle obstacles such as lack of prior work experience, child care responsibilities and limited networks.
The 24-week limit
The new measures build on a change made at the end of 2023, when the Netherlands abolished its “24-weken-eis,” which limited asylum seekers to no more than 24 weeks of paid work in a 52-week period. Since that change, asylum seekers who applied for asylum at least six months earlier have been allowed to work all year. The shift was widely welcomed by employers, who said the previous rule made hiring asylum seekers far less attractive. According to a researcher at the Sociaal Cultureel Planbureau (SCP), “by working, newcomers learn the language and the culture,” which itself helps integration.
A wider migration backdrop
The plan is being unveiled in a country that has become more sceptical about migration in general. A new poll reported by Het Algemeen Dagblad this weekend found that around 68 percent of Dutch people support a cap on labour migration (a separate group, mainly EU workers coming to the Netherlands to take jobs in sectors such as logistics, horticulture and meat processing), while just 3 percent want no restrictions at all. The cabinet has placed labour migration high on its agenda, and the new temp-agency permit law (WTTA) takes effect in 2027.
Status-holders are a legally and statistically separate group from labour migrants. But the policy logic links the two: in a country with both serious labour shortages and a public mood that wants tighter limits on new arrivals, making better use of the people already here becomes a more pressing political and economic question.
What happens next
The plan is now with the Tweede Kamer, which will debate it in the coming months. Aartsen is also expected to come back with further proposals before the summer, drawing on the existing Werkagenda Voor een Inclusieve Arbeidsmarkt (VIA) (2025–2028), which already brings together the Plan van Aanpak Statushouders aan het Werk. Whether the plan can deliver 75,000 extra working status-holders in four years will depend not just on the ministry, but on municipalities, employers, language schools and the newcomers themselves.