Refugees' chance of work increased by better housing division: report

The job opportunities for refugees can increase if more account is taken of their situation, according to central planning office CPB. For example, the region in which a refugee is placed plays a big role on whether or not the refugee will find a job. The chance that a refugee has a job 10 years after being placed in a favorable region is almost 1.5 times greater than if he or she was placed in an unfavorable region, according to CPB, NU.nl reports.

Until recently a refugee's connection to the regional labor market was not taken into account when finding a home for him or her. Municipalities mainly looked at the number of inhabitants, more refugees went to larger cities than smaller towns. Since 2016 more account was taken of who is placed where. An interview with the refugee is intended to reveal where the best place for him or her will be based on age, gender, origin and education, among other things.

But according to CPB, this interview and the advice that stems from it can be more sophisticated. Big data - analyses of large amounts of data from the past - can play an important role here, the CPB believes. In this way the chance of a refugee finding a job in a region can be predicted as well as possible based on how refugees with similar characteristics did in the region in the past.