The asylum seekers who arrived in our country during the 2015 refugee crisis are currently fully engaged in our job market. Despite the initial optimism about the economic employability of this group of newcomers, their actual labour market participation remains limited for the time being. In times of increasing shortage on the labour market, we will nevertheless need all the available talent to grow our businesses.
Despite the initial optimism about the economic employability of this group of newcomers, their actual labour market participation remains limited for the time being.
Based on the results of a survey conducted by ETION, we can conclude that many companies still have doubts about taking the step of recruiting people from this target group because they think that their knowledge of Dutch and their professional skills will not be sufficient to fill vacant positions satisfactorily.
The companies that have already started working with refugees do indeed indicate that they have often had to make an above-average effort to integrate these people into their workplace. However, it is hopeful that they are generally very satisfied with the work performance of people with a refugee background.
Nathan Van Camp
Program Coordinator at ETION
Associated Postdoctoral Researcher at University of Antwerp
Advisory Board member of All-in-one 4 HER
This article was first published on 20 May 2019 on ETION. Click to download the full article in Dutch.
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