90% of refugees are still unemployed after living for 2.5 years in the Netherlands



Refugees with a residence permit barely have a job, Dutch newspaper “De Telegraaf” reports. Almost 90% of refugees, who received their residence permit in 2014, were unemployed two and a half years later, according to figures from the Dutch statistics office CBS.
While 11% of refugees do work, a large majority of them still don’t have a full-time job. After two and a half years only 15% are fully employed. The group mostly consists of Syrians and Eritreans: 75% of refugees come from one of those two countries.


Dutch migration researcher Jan van de Beek, tells De Telegraaf that a lot of migrants didn’t have decent education. According to Van de Beek especially low skilled jobs are unattractive for migrants because sometimes the benefits they receive are just as high as the income from a low skilled job.