Educated ethnic minorities get jobs faster

Educated ethnic minorities have a better chance of finding a job in the Dutch job market than their peers with a lower education, but are still at a disadvantage against people with two Dutch parents.

This is according to new figures by Statistics Netherlands, who researched the employment and unemployment rates among non-Western people who have at least one parent that was born in a non-Western country at the request of the Volkskrant.

According to the figures, the second generation of non-Western people are doing a lot better in the job market than the first generation. Turkish, Moroccan, Surinamese and Antillean Dutch that are the second generation of their family to be in the Netherlands, have a paid job more often than the first generation. But the unemployment rate is still two to three times as high as that of people with two Dutch parents.

According to Jaco Dagevos, a sociologist of the Netherlands Institute for Social Research  (SCP), a major reason for the progress of the second generation is the increasing level of education. "The progression to higher education is spectacular." he said. In 2013 Turkish- and Moroccan Dutch between the ages of 25 and 35 years were highly educated almost three times as often as those between the ages of 55 and 65 years. But there is still a gap with peers who have two Dutch parents. In 2013 people with two Dutch parents between the ages of 25 and 35 were more than twice as often highly educated than their Turkish and Moroccan peers.