According to the national employers’ association labour shortages in the country are so severe that around 30.000 current job vacancies cannot be filled. A lot of these jobs are in the tourism sector that over the years has become one of the most important pillars of the economy, accounting for almost 20% of the GDP. One of the problems is the so-called brain drain, with a lot of young and qualified workers leaving the country to work and live elsewhere. The other side of the story is a mismatch between the skills of the labour force and the demands of the labour market. This mismatch is clearly visible when looking at the 9.1 percent unemployment rate in relation to the thousands of jobs that cannot be filled.
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For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers or Sanne van der Gaag, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the Head of communications at the ETUI, Willy De Backer wdebacker@etui.org © ETUI