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News from the NOS•
More people have emigrated to the Netherlands this year than in any full year in the past two decades. Due to the war in Ukraine, this increase is not surprising, but it is a trend that could have important consequences. For example, due to the shortage of housing and staff.
What does the CBS data say?
Up to and including September, nearly 318,000 immigrants have settled in the Netherlands. Nearly 130,000 people left for overseas during that time. There were about 2400 more births than deaths. All in all, according to CBS, this is a population growth of 191,000. “We can certainly speak of a record,” says Tanja Traag, chief sociologist at CBS.
In this graph you can see that the population increase is currently more than double compared to the same period last year:
NOS
According to CBS, there is a recovery this year. Some immigrants have had to postpone their travel in recent years due to the corona pandemic.
Asylum seekers are not included in the above figures. Only when someone obtains a residence permit, and thus becomes the holder of the status, is he / she counted in the official population figures.
Who is most likely to come and why?
There is free movement of persons between the Netherlands and other EU Member States. “There is a great need and demand for workers from Europe,” says Traag of Statistics Netherlands. “Particularly from Central and Eastern European countries such as Poland and Bulgaria, many people come here to work.” European migrants account for around 29 per cent of the total influx.
By far the largest group of newcomers come from Ukraine. About 97,000 Ukrainian citizens fled to the Netherlands this year due to the war. This is about one third of all immigrants.
The red bar chart (which the Ukrainian group falls into) is more than ten times bigger this year than in previous years:
NOS
The third largest group comes from Asia. Think above all of countries like Syria, Afghanistan, India and Turkey. Immigrants from Syria and Afghanistan mainly flee the violence of war or persecution in their own country.
According to Traag, the Indian group is mainly made up of knowledge workers and students. “They work mainly in the software industry, have a relatively good salary and usually come here to work temporarily.”
There has been a recent influx of Turkish immigrants, but CBS is still not sure why this number has increased.
What does this imply?
There are concerns about the effect of population growth on the housing crisis. There are already too few rented and owner-occupied houses or apartments available. The lack of available social housing also means that status holders remain stuck in the asylum chain.
A further influx of migrants is expected to further aggravate the housing and asylum crisis. But there are also positive consequences. In many industries, employers are eager for staff. Immigrants can, for example, work in the health sector, the ICT sector, the construction sector and education. The big question is to what extent this will eliminate the staff shortage.
