While the last week of recess was underway and the cabinet team was busy negotiating a government programme, the VVD opened the political season with a striking development on a charged topic: labour migration. On Monday, VVD MP Thierry Aertsen published a “vision document” on labour migration. The VVD member opposes the widespread presence of low-skilled migrant workers in the Netherlands. According to Aertsen, there is a “dark side to unbridled labour migration, which has become larger and more visible in recent years”. As an alternative to migrant workers, the VVD hopes to turn to innovation and robotics.
Until now, the party has always presented itself as a supporter of large-scale labour immigration – this would help business, the party has believed for many years, following the example of big business and employers’ organisations whose support for the party is important.
The VVD’s plan comes at the end of the holiday break and shortly before the House of Representatives debates labour immigration next week. Aartsen says the plan was completed before the summer. Norwegian Refugee CouncilBut he put it aside during the break. This is “an opening act in this extra-parliamentary cooperation” of the coalition parties PVV, VVD, NSC and BBB, says Aertsen.
Young male asylum seekers
His plan is already drawing mixed reactions from coalition members. BBB leader Caroline van der Plas said she “shared the concerns” of the VVD about the large number of migrant workers. Norwegian Refugee CouncilBut she believes the VVD is ignoring the “elephant in the room”: asylum migration. According to Van der Plas, young asylum seekers from safe countries who cause trouble are a bigger concern than migrant workers.
This is also the position of the Freedom Party, which in recent years has increasingly focused on limiting the flow of asylum seekers and has partly ignored labour migration. The Freedom Party for Freedom could not be reached for a response to the party’s plan.
Restricting labour migration is of course more of a problem for the NSC than for the VVD.
Housing
The NSC is much more positive than the BBB. The VVD’s role is to compensate for this coalition partner, which during and after the campaign stressed the need to reduce abuses among migrant workers. Since the cabinet took office, the issue has been the responsibility of the prominent Minister of Social Affairs and Employment, Eddie van Heeghum.
NSC MP Tjebbe van Oostenbruggen is happy with the new VVD position. “Limiting labour migration is of course more of a problem for the NSC than for the VVD, and Peter Omtzigt has been demanding action for years, and the VVD under Rutte did not want to do nothing about it. But we prefer to have supporters rather than opponents.”
The National Security Council sees labour migration as more problematic than asylum migration. “It involves more people, and it’s a housing problem alone,” says Van Oostenbruggen. Every year, one in nine migrants entering the Netherlands are asylum seekers, with the rest largely made up of work migrants and families. In 2023, 336,000 migrants arrived in the Netherlands, according to the Central Statistical Office.
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According to the Van Zwolle State Commission, which investigated the demographic development in the Netherlands up to 2050, unbridled labour migration puts more pressure on the Netherlands than asylum migration. Moreover, labour migration is easier to restrict. As for asylum migration, the Netherlands is bound by international treaties, while labour migration can be slowed down by limiting the demand for cheap labour and strictly supervising companies that employ such people.
The VVD does not want to end labour migration, but according to the party, businesses should get rid of the large numbers of cheap workers coming from abroad. The VVD believes that sectors have become too dependent on cheap migrant labour, which stifles innovation, and that there is too much pressure on social services.
The VVD program focuses in particular on reducing the migration of “low-productivity” workers, such as in agriculture or slaughterhouses. The reduction should be achieved by supporting companies that innovate quickly using automation and robotics. Aartsen also wants to impose a surcharge on entrepreneurs who hire cheap migrant workers.
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Seasonal workers
The VVD plans appear to be unfavorable to the BBB’s farmer base. Sixty percent of agricultural work is done by seasonal workers, a group largely made up of migrant workers. The LTO, the most important lobbying organization in the agricultural sector, announced Monday that it disagrees with Aartsen’s plan to make hiring migrant workers more expensive. “In a sector where labor shortages are the norm, this would be the wrong solution,” the LTO said.
The agricultural organisation supports Aertsen’s plan to focus on robots to make manual labour less necessary. According to BBB MP Henk Vermeer, who has often been involved in coalition negotiations, “not the VVD but the BBB often stressed during the formation that robots are an important point. It’s a good idea, but it’s our good idea.”
The VVD’s change of position follows that of the employers’ organisation VNO-NCW. For many years, this has encouraged a large influx of migrant workers to fill staff shortages. In 2022, VNO-NCW expressed its support for the European Commission’s plan to bring legal migrant workers from outside Europe to the EU.
The VNO-NCW has now changed its position. In January, after the publication of the van Zwolle Commission report, the employers’ organisation spoke of the need for “good management” of labour migration, and in response to Aartsen’s vision document, the VNO-NCW wrote about the VVD’s ambitions to “gain more control over labour migration”.