Coalition party VVD pushing for fewer migrant workers

The VVD wants to reduce the number of migrant workers in the Netherlands, parliamentarian Thierry Aartsen said in an interview with AD. “Not to zero,” he said, explaining his party’s new vision on labor migration. “We really need workers from other countries. But, there must be fewer than there are now.” The party wants stricter rules for housing migrant workers, a national register to keep track of them, and to send homeless EU workers back to their country of origin.

The VVD MP said that migration is currently “problem number one, two, and three” for the Dutch population, and that could be seen in the PVV’s big win in the 2023 parliamentary election. “Anyone who walks into a random village pub and asks what people are worried about, will hear that.”

According to Aartsen, that is not because Dutch people have a problem with migrants, but because migrants put enormous pressure on society. “There are creaking and groaning problems in healthcare, education, and the housing shortage,’ he said.

Earlier this year, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, the UN special rapporteur on adequate housing, concluded in a report that not immigrants, but decades of government policy were to blame for the Netherlands’ housing shortage. The VVD was the ruling party for the past 14 years and has been in all but two Dutch Cabinets since 1982.

Aartsen thinks companies should invest in machines instead of hiring cheap personnel from abroad. “Investing in automation and robots must become more attractive. At the same time, we want to phase out tax regulations that make it attractive for labor migrants to come here.”

The VVD also wants to introduce stricter requirements for housing migrant workers, Aartsen said. Employers themselves, and not employment agencies, should be responsible for good housing for their staff. The party wants to implement new regulations that would benefit employers who “build separate flex homes on the company’s premises” but not employers who work with landlords who house migrant workers in split-up homes in city neighborhoods.

The party also advocates for a national registration point so that it is clear who works and resides in the Netherlands. And it wants to be able to send homeless EU migrant workers back to their countries of origin.

Last week, the Dutch Innovation Monitor 2024 showed that a quarter of Dutch businesses that employ people from abroad plan to realize future growth outside the Netherlands if the Schoof I Cabinet implements stricter rules on labor migration. Another 23 percent may scale down production in the Netherlands, and 17 percent said they’d move some or all of their activities out of the Netherlands.

The anti-immigration rhetoric during the 2023 parliamentary election campaign and in the formation process of the current right-wing government also caused a crisis for the Dutch business climate. Big companies like ASML, NXP, Boskalis, and Van Oord threatened to move their future plans outside of the Netherlands. That set the outgoing Cabinet scrambling to keep these businesses, resulting in a 1.4 billion euro plan promising they’d have access to the resources, including workers, they need. ASML finally agreed to stay in Eindhoven and announced expansion plans that would create 20,000 jobs in the region.