Dutch employers can continue to deduct housing fees from minimum wage migrant workers

Caretaker Minister of Social Affairs and Employment Mariëlle Paul of the VVD has informed Parliament that the government intends to keep allowing employers to deduct housing costs from the minimum wage of migrant workers. Her predecessor, Eddy van Hijum of NSC, had proposed phasing out the practice next year, warning that it made workers more vulnerable to exploitation.

Paul notes that the rule allowing employers to withhold up to 25 percent of the minimum wage for housing has “two sides.” She concedes that the system can encourage an “undesirable business model” and make migrant workers too dependent on their employers, who are often temp agencies. At the same time, she argues that it helps workers secure housing and that the conditions tied to rent quality and pricing offer at least some oversight of living standards.

The trade union FNV has responded with outrage. It accuses Paul of sustaining a “perverse profit model at the expense of migrant workers.” FNV warns that the policy leaves workers doubly reliant on their employer, who can simultaneously serve as boss and landlord, and adds that allowing rent deductions gives employers an easy way to keep migrant labor inexpensive.

Jacqie van Stigt, interim director for migrant labor at FNV, criticizes the policy, saying, “It is unacceptable for a temporary minister, who claims to want to fight abuses, to maintain measures that create exactly those abuses.”

Paul emphasizes that improving conditions for migrant workers remains a priority. Proposed legislation includes stricter oversight of temp agencies and stronger rental protections for migrant employees.

The NSC was the second party to pull out of the governing coalition, with their ministers exiting Prime Minister Dick Schoof's Cabinet after just 13 months in power. The PVV was the first to go, plunging the Cabinet into caretaker status in June after taking office only 11 months earlier.

New elections were held on Tuesday, showing voters punished both of the parties, and their coalition partners, BBB and VVD. The PVV won the 2023 Tweede Kamer election, and sent 37 members to the lower house of Dutch Parliament, but were projected to hold 26 seats when the new group of MPs takes office.

NSC likely lost all 19 of their remaining seats in Parliament. They entered the Tweede Kamer with 20 seats, but one MP left to join the BBB, bringing their total up to eight. The BBB was projected to win four seats in the election, and the VVD likely fell from 24 seats down to 22, marking the right-wing party's lowest total since the 2006 election led to the formation of Jan Peter Balkenende's fourth Cabinet.