Refugees to drive construction industry boom

The Economic Institute for the Building Industry expects that the arrival of refugees in the Netherlands will lead to a boom in the construction industry. The EIB estimates that additional housing to accommodate asylum seekers will account for a turnover of 5 billion euros and 28 thousand labor-years of work for builders. The increasing number of asylum application could lead to to the construction of 50 thousand additional homes between now and 2020, which leads to more jobs and more money, the Institute explained to RTL Nieuws on Tuesday. This year alone the influx of refugees will lead to an additional 15 thousand households, and they all need somewhere to live. The EIB bases its estimates on figures from the Immigration and Naturalization Service on the number of asylum applications in the Netherlands. Even if not all these asylum seekers are granted residency permits, many more homes will be needed. Next year the refugees will provide an additional turnover of 1.3 billion euros and a year's work for 7 thousand construction workers. The prospects for 2017 are even better - additional turnover of 1.7 billion euros and a year's work for 9 thousand builders. The institute is concerned about whether the industry will be able to handle the demand for additional housing on such short notice. It believes that the construction companies will eventually be able to supply the demand, but because the housing market is on the rise, it will be "complicated to get a timely launch of such a substantial additional supply." The EIB hopes that the government will help remedy this by carrying out planned housing projects earlier. And that municipalities will help by being flexible about how they deal with rules.