Jan 24, 2024 at 5:02 AM Update: 18 minutes ago
Many Eastern European employees are active in various Dutch sectors, such as distribution centers, agriculture and horticulture and the meat industry. The new cabinet may want to put a brake on this, but are we prepared to pay more for our products?
“We are already dealing with a tight labor market. If the availability of employees decreases even more, there will be a price war for personnel,” says retail expert Michel Kregel. “If the cost price rises, we cannot avoid paying more for fruit and vegetables or for a package that is delivered.”
According to Kregel, this will mainly be the case in distribution centers. “A large part of the workforce consists of migrant workers. If the cost price rises due to an even greater shortage of personnel, we as consumers will pay more. We are already seeing this in the catering industry, but also with flash delivery companies.”
The discussion about the usefulness of migrant workers continues. In total, more than 800,000 employees, mainly from Eastern Europe, work in our country. Outgoing Minister Karien van Gennip (Employment) also recently questioned the arrival of even more labor migrants during the presentation of a report by the State Committee on Demographic Developments 2050.
“We really have a problem if it is more attractive for employers to hire three employees from Eastern Europe than to invest in a robot. The Netherlands should not want to be a low-wage country,” she said. “The benefits of cheap labor belong to the employer, while society bears the burden. This must be fairer. As far as I am concerned, the government has a leading role in this and should not leave it to the market alone.”
‘There is a lot of shouting’
The CNV trade union put the subject on the map a number of years ago by advocating for slowing down labor migration. There are also increasing voices in politics to realize this. Moreover, the influx of migrant workers leads to many problems. Exploitation and poor housing are the order of the day.
But the main question is who will do the work and what the consequences will be, says consumer psychologist Wendy Oude Veldhuis. “There is a lot of shouting, but does the majority in our country want a restriction on labor migration? These people do the work that we do not want or cannot do.”
Oude Veldhuis also states that we may pay more for certain products. “But the question is of course what the consequences are and how we are going to solve it. It is easy to shout that we want to get rid of migrant workers. But what are the alternatives?”
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Labor marketEconomics
2024-01-24 04:02:43
#Brakes #labor #migration #lead #price #war #personnel #Economy
