News hour
Come live in Groningen again. The municipality recently made this striking appeal to former fellow citizens. Groningen wants to tackle the shortage on the labor market with a poster campaign.
Posters with the text ‘Groningen recall campaign’ have recently been put up in Utrecht and on the Zuidas in Amsterdam. Followed by: ‘Hey young professional. Would you like to give your future a boost?’
“Things are not going well,” says Anniek Ottens of the Groningen marketing team while campaigning in the center of Utrecht. “We miss a lot of young professionals who want to make a career. We have a lot of great companies that are eager for staff.”
It is a complete misconception that there are no career opportunities here.
Councilor Carine Bloemhoff
Groningen is a popular student city. But once young people have their diploma, they often leave again. Councilor Carine Bloemhoff finds this “incomprehensible”.
“It’s such a good life here.” Moreover, there is plenty of work, she says. “At the UMC Groningen, at the municipality, in education. It is a complete misconception that there are no career opportunities here.”
How come people don’t see that? “Because we can sometimes sell it better than Groningen,” says Bloemhoff.
A hopeless mission
This sale now takes place in Amsterdam and Utrecht. But Jan Latten, emeritus professor of social demography, thinks it will make little difference. He finds the poster campaign “courageous”, but also says that it is an irreversible fact that many Groningen residents leave after their studies.
Because in the Randstad, for example, there are many more international companies. “We know about that: they pay more.”
These Groningen students also want to go to the Randstad after their studies:
Groningen students know where they want to go: the Randstad
According to demographer Latten, Groningen will not succeed in attracting formerCity residents to return en masse. “You sometimes hear stories that people are going back, but those are a few retirees. They are also dead within a few years. So that is not of much use.”
Inflow and outflow in balance
Of the people who study in Groningen, 60 percent leave the Northern Netherlands within six years after completing their studies. It must be said that more than half of the students who start their studies in Groningen do not originally come from the Northern Netherlands. The inflow and outflow are therefore in balance, calculated the University of Groningen in 2021.
It is not a problem that a large number of people are leaving again, said professor of regional labor market Jouke van Dijk at the time. “But it would of course be even better if northern companies themselves made use of this important source of knowledge and innovation that is produced here in the region.”
Groningen shrinking region
A ‘mission impossible’, says Jan Latten in 2023. He points to data from the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) that show that the province of Groningen will face significant shrinkage until 2035.
This especially applies to municipalities such as Eemsdelta (a predicted population decline of 12.5 percent), Westerwolde, Oldambt and Veendam. In the last three municipalities, the population will shrink by more than 7 percent until 2035, calculated CBS.
No province will shrink as sharply as Groningen in the coming years. By the way, the city of Groningen is the only municipality in that province that is not shrinking: the number of inhabitants there will even increase by almost 14 percent.
Unfortunately for Alderman Bloemhoff, this increase is mainly due to the growing number of students. The municipality hopes that they will remain on board when they are ‘young professionals’.
2023-12-23 06:00:01
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