Highly-skilled migrants still have trouble getting work

Highly-skilled Dutch people are quicker to find work in the Netherlands than migrants with a non-western ethnicity with the same level of education, according to figures from Statistics Netherlands. Statistics Netherlands looked at the employment circumstances of people between the ages of 15 to 75 years who are no longer studying or going to school. Their employment circumstances were checked every quarter and the results were then analysed based on the people's level of education and ethnicity. Highly-skilled people tend to find work more quickly than those with a lower education, no matter what the ethnicity. But Statistics Netherlands did find differences when looked at the ethnicity of people with the same level of education. Of the highly educated Dutch unemployed 26 percent had work three months later, compared to 20 percent of non-western highly educated unemployed. These differences between Dutch and non-western unemployed decrease along with the level of education. The lower the level of education, the smaller the difference between the chance of Dutch unemployed and non-western unemployed finding work. Statistics Netherlands also found that low- and medium skilled non-western immigrants tend to be more likely to lose their jobs than Dutch workers with the same education. Among highly-educated the differences are smaller. Last year 20.2 percent of low-skilled non-western migrants were unemployed last year, compared to 9.2 percent of Dutch with the same level of education. According to Statistics Netherlands, the relatively high rate of unemployment among low-skilled migrants is primarily because they lose their jobs quickly, not because they find it more difficult to find work. Among the highly skilled non-western migrants, nearly 8 percent were unemployed last year, compared to 3.4 percent of Dutch on the same level. Here the differences is because highly skilled non-western migrants find it more difficult to find a job than their Dutch counterparts.