Asylum agency scraps 1,300 temporary jobs

The central agency for the reception of asylum seekers COA is cutting 1,300 of its total 4 thousand jobs, the Ministry of Security and Justice announced on Monday. This mostly affects people who are working for the COA on a temporary contracts, NU.nl reports

The COA needs to cut jobs due to the decrease in the number of asylum seekers in the Netherlands. Over the past years the number of COA employees were increased to deal with an influx, but that is no longer necessary. The people who have to leave were already informed.

"These are people who guided asylum seekers, support staff but also managers", CEO Gerard Bakker said to BNR. "We talked to the staff, they know that the asylum flow fluctuates and that we are an organization that grows and shrinks."

Despite this, it is still a raw deal, Bakker said. "Especially since these are people who made sure that no asylum seeker ended up on the street."