Free childcare, a stronger army, build 100,000 homes a year, recruit more teachers and billions for sustainability. The cabinet is pulling out for ambitious new plans, but are there enough people available to fill all the new jobs?
Ton Wilthagen calls the labor market the Achilles heel of the coalition agreement. “The money is not the problem, it is the people,” says the Tilburg labor market professor. “Without enough people with the right qualifications, the ambitions cannot be realized.”
Economist Matthijs Bouman also feels the same way. He points to the extra construction workers and road builders that are needed for all the billion-dollar plans for the housing market and infrastructure. “And the grand climate plans: we already have a shortage of technicians for the energy transition,” said Bouman this morning Bee news hour.
More demand for staff
It is not yet clear how many jobs will be needed to implement the cabinet plans. But already there are 126 vacancies for every 100 unemployed. And the number of unemployed is already historically low, figured the CBS today.
That shortage is expected to increase even further without the new plans. In childcare, for example, the number of vacancies in relation to the number of job seekers increases by 46 percent increase in the next ten years, while childcare organizations already do not have enough staff. Bouman: “The increase in the reimbursement for childcare will lead to more demand for staff.” And thus to greater deficits.
shortage crisis
The risk is that the billions that are now being distributed cannot be used if the shortages in the labor market are not solved first. “We saw this in the previous cabinet term, for example, in the defense sector: money had been set aside for extra soldiers, but that remained on the shelf for a while because there were not enough people who signed up,” says Bouman.
Wilthagen therefore drew up an action plan this summer to tackle the ‘shortage crisis’. He sees ten solutions. “For example, it is even better to tap into the unused labor potential or look more broadly at labor migration,” says Wilthagen.
Invite migrant workers
The coalition agreement contains a number of measures to tackle the staff shortages. For example, the minimum wage will increase slightly and welfare recipients will be able to earn more. It should become easier for MBO graduates to find an internship and the cabinet wants to encourage “labour-market-relevant” vocational training.
“And it says that the Netherlands will look more closely at Germany in the field of labor migration,” says Bouman. “The new government said there: we are no longer going to wait for someone to come to the Netherlands, but we are going to invite suitable people from outside the European Union to come and work here.”
But is it enough? Wilthagen: “No, I don’t think so. It is good that a direction has been chosen. But these were things that should have happened 15 years ago. Now all kinds of ambitions have been added. I am afraid that they are being held back by the shortage of people.”
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