Dutch union calls for stop on migrant workers

Dutch union CNV is calling on Dutch employers to stop employing migrant workers. CNV wants the shortage of professionals to be filled with people now standing on the sidelines of the Dutch labor market, union president Maurice Limmen said in an interview with the Telegraaf.

"Employers must not come with the excuse that they have to get people from abroad, because the labor market is so tight", Limmen said to the newspaper. "There is a huge group of 1.2 million people who are still on the sidelines, such s the elderly, disabled and non-Western immigrants, who indicate that they want to work."

Instead of hiring people from abroad, employers should focus on getting Dutch unemployed to fill vacancies. "Invest in professionals through training and permanent contracts and look at the unused labor potential, a group that is wrongly on the reserves. Make your sector attractive by offering decent jobs. That is the solution", Limmen said.

According to Limmen, employers have themselves to blame for the shortage of professionals. "The wailing about shortages in the labor market comes mainly from sectors that have done everything themselves to make working in that sector as unattractive as possible." The hospitality sector is a good example of that, he said. "Especially in that sector, the hospitality industry, which for years did not want to make a collective bargaining agreement, which has poor employment conditions, where little or nothing has been done about education and development, is a shortage of professionals. What goes around comes around. So do not whine now."