Employers using company homes, not cars to lure workers

Employers are increasingly using housing to lure workers. Instead of a company car, companies are offering help mediating in the rental market or placing homes on their own property as a way to become attractive in the tight labor market amid a housing shortage in the Netherlands, according to BLG Wonen.

“Housing is considered a new employment condition,” BLG Wonen director Frank Soede told the Telegraaf. “Everyone used to want a company car, but now living space is the new holy grail.”

Most companies in the Netherlands consider it their responsibility to help employees find suitable housing, according to BLG Wonen, a subsidiary of Volksbank. Of the companies that aren’t offering housing options yet, 86 percent indicate that they plan to help employees with housing in the future. Most companies think this will make them more attractive to new employees and help retain existing workers.

According to Peter Boelhouwer, professor of housing systems, whether this will help with the housing shortage depends on what employers have in mind. “If companies with deep pockets buy up homes to rent to their own people, it will not benefit the housing market,” he said.

But examples like ASML, which contributes to housing construction around the Veldhoven company, is a good example of how employers can contribute to a solution, Boelhouwer told the newspaper. “It shows that companies are waking up. You cannot endlessly bring people from abroad to work but shift all kinds of problems like the housing market onto society,” he said.