Municipality: problems with migrant workers are only increasing

• Elisa van der Vlist

  editor of Nieuwsuur

• 

  Anna Mae from Tilburg

  editor of Nieuwsuur

Cities still have many problems with migrant workers, according to a tour Home Administration among eighteen cities, including the four largest.

It is surprising that more than three quarters of the municipal areas have seen their problems increase in the past year. Almost half even say that problems have increased significantly in the past year. Four years ago, a committee led by former MP Emile Roemer (SP) came. thick report full of recommendations to improve the situation of migrant workers.

For example, more should be done to combat abuse and fake employment agencies should be tackled. In addition, migrant workers should be better registered with cities.

The recommendations of the report have been accepted wall-to-wall in The Hague, but the Home Government survey shows that cities are still not realizing much of this:

Most cities see the disappearance of migrant workers under the radar as one of the most pressing problems. This often happens because they are not registered in the Municipal Personal Records Database (BRP).

Cities are also facing problems due to increasing pressure on the already tight housing market. They see a group of homeless people who are increasingly appearing among people who came to the Netherlands as labor migrants. Employers and employment agencies bring these people to the Netherlands and often arrange their housing. But when these people lose their jobs, they also lose their housing. Some then end up on the street.

As not all migrant workers register, it is difficult to say how many there are in the Netherlands. The research group Decisio, which carries out a lot of research on international workers on behalf of the government, came to the conclusion, based on figures from CBS Microdata, that there were almost 760,000 labor migrants living in the Netherlands in 2022. They looked at labor migrants who were registered in the Urban Personal Records Database (BRP) and labor migrants who had registered without a permanent residence.

Venlo is one of the municipalities in the Netherlands where many migrant workers are imported. Some live in harsh conditions in an abandoned casino:

The mayor of Venlo Antoin Scholten is very upset about the migrant workers who live in an abandoned casino. “We would really like to get these people out of there. But we don’t have a way to accommodate them right now.” He wants to talk to employers and also to the people themselves. “We have to see if there is a possibility that these people can integrate back into society. If that is not possible, the people must return.”

According to the economic geographer Ton van Rietbergen, employers and cities are shifting the problem solving problem to each other. “When it comes to success, everyone is there to claim it. But when problems arise, one person tries to pass it on to the other person. It is about moral and legal responsibility. Morally, employment agencies are responsible and just technically and legally, are cities responsible.”

Councilor Roy Bouten in Horst aan de Maas says that it is mostly the companies that bring in these people who are responsible. “Most companies are doing very well. But we now see too often that some entrepreneurs do not act for the good of migrant workers or local residents, but mainly for their own good. I believe you have a responsibility as an entrepreneur If someone is there. losing their jobs, they need to make sure they can return home safely, and therefore finance a good trip home, or arrange another place to sleep.”

If migrant workers no longer have housing after being fired, shelter is also the responsibility of the city. Bouten says he wants to accommodate homeless migrant workers, but this is difficult in practice. “First, you need enforcement capacity to investigate reports. Second, you don’t have room now for management to organize it. I think we need to provide that room for management very quickly from the Hague, because this is really at the expense of both local residents as well as migrant workers.”

Banning migrant workers from coming to the Netherlands is completely unrealistic, according to both Mayor Scholten and councilor Horst aan de Maas. “Migrant workers are needed in different sectors. For example, if I just look at health care, we can see that 30 percent of health care workers in the sector will retire again in the ten years ahead,” said councilor Bouten. “Then the health care system is already unsustainable.”