3 hours Ago
What the Numbers Show
The "second generation," meaning people born in the Netherlands to one or two immigrant parents, saw unemployment go from 5.3 percent in 2024 to 6 percent this year. Dutch people whose parents were also born in the country saw almost no change, with the rate edging up from 2.9 percent to 3.0 percent. Across the whole country, unemployment stood at 4.0 percent in the first three quarters.
The gap between immigrants and the national average had been shrinking until 2022. It then held steady until 2024. Statistics Netherlands has not yet pinned down why the rise is happening almost entirely among immigrants and their children in recent quarters.
Education, Age and a Tight Job Market
Economist Peter Hein van Mulligen said education may be part of the answer. The rise was sharper among immigrants with fewer educational qualifications, who often struggle to find work and tend to hold more vulnerable jobs. Among all people with fewer qualifications, unemployment was 3.8 percent. For immigrants it was 6.5 percent, against 2.1 percent for Dutch people.
Age plays a part as well. Immigrants are generally younger, and younger people are more likely to be out of work. Youth unemployment overall was 9 percent, but it reached 15.3 percent for immigrants aged 15 to 25, compared with 7 percent for Dutch people in the same age group.
It helps to know how the count works. A person is only counted as unemployed if they are actively looking for work and could start right away. Many people without jobs are not counted because they are not searching. Van Mulligen added that the Dutch labor market remains tight, and the rise is mainly due to more people entering the market to look for work. That may be true for immigrants too, who could have started job hunting because conditions looked good.
Calls to Rethink Integration
Tesseltje de Lange, a professor of European migration law at Radboud University, called the findings a message for everyone involved in civic integration. Refugees and immigrants must finish their integration process, which is often hard to combine with full-time work. She suggested that policy should lean much more toward education and initial professional qualifications.
Last week, the government said it plans to give working refugees, and those caring for young children, more time to meet their civic integration requirements. Asylum and Migration Minister Bart van den Brink acknowledged that the process takes a lot of time and is hard to balance with a job. He hopes the extra time will help more refugees enter the labor market sooner.
