PvdA jobs plan: fill 100k vacancies

The PvdA in a new action plan wants to combat unemployment in the Netherlands with manufacturing jobs, support for job seekers with starting a business, and filling the 100,000 open vacancies. 

PvdA MP Mariëtte Hamer presented this action plan to Parliament on Thursday, RTV Noord reports.

"Everyone has a neighbor, friend or family member who has become unemployed. Although the Netherlands has found the way to the surface again, unemployment is still too high. That is why we have to nation-wide as well as locally put in the work."

Despite the high unemployment, there are still almost 100,000 job vacancies unfilled. The PvdA wants to place a mobility center in every region where, with help from schooling, unemployed are paired with a vacancy. The PvdA also wants to reinstate manufacturing jobs, which have disappeared in the last decade.

Ten thousand new jobs have surfaced in America thanks to this 'reshoring.' The PvdA also wants to create new jobs by informing job seekers about the possibilities of starting a business from benefits, making starters credit available, and making sure that starting entrepreneurs will receive supervision from an expert.

The PvdA emphasizes that extra local initiatives have to be sought in municipalities. Hamer said "in several municipalities, aldermen of the PvdA made the difference in the last few years by realizing successful employment plans, in which chances in the municipality or region is also looked at."

PvdA party front-runner in Hollands Kroon, Jan Steven van Dijk, supports this plan fiercely. "The best social security is having a job, that's what we have to work hard at in the coming time to get new jobs. The coming of Microsoft to Hollands Kroon is a good start and now we have to diligently carry on."