Refugees in Netherlands getting work more quickly

Refugees - asylum seekers with a residency permit - are finding jobs in the Netherlands more and more quickly, Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reported. The statistics office noted that the longer a refugee has been in the Netherlands, the greater the chance they will find paid work.

According to CBS, almost 285,000 asylum seekers reported to the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) from 2014 to June 2022. Over 215,000 of them received a residency permit and refugee status. More than half of them are from Syria.

Almost 20 percent of all refugees who had a residency permit in 2019 found a job in the 2.5 years after that. In 2014, that share was still 11 percent. CBS noted a dip in the number of refugees who found work during the coronavirus pandemic. The stats office attributed this to the sectors where refugees often work, like the catering sector, being closed in the lockdowns.

Eritrean refugees seem to have the easiest time finding work in the Netherlands. Just over 60 percent of Eritreans with a residency permit have found employment after 7.5 years. Refugees from Afghanistan find jobs the fastest. A third of this group had paid work within 2.5 years, almost three times as much as the average.

People from Iran and Syria seem to need more help finding work. After 7.5 years, 37.8 percent of Syrian refugees and 39.2 percent of Iranian refugees had paid work. That is significantly less than the other large groups of refugees in the Netherlands - 48.1 percent of Afghan refugees and 61.6 percent of Eritrean refugees had found work in that time. It should be noted that Syrians are by far the largest group of refugees in the country, so in actual numbers, many have found work.