Immigrants catching up in education, jobs

Non-western immigrants are beginning to close the gap with native Dutch people in terms of education, jobs and income, the national statistics office CBS said in a new report on integration in the Netherlands.


The 266-page report looked at the position of what it calls ‘non-western’ immigrants, largely people from Morocco, Turkey, Suriname and the Antilles in Dutch society. The integration of immigrants is a central part of national and local government policy.
The report shows that despite the improvements, boys with an ethnic minority background are still more likely to go into lower level vocational training, drop out of school early and perform less well in exams than their white peers.
For example, around 80% of boys with a Turkish or Moroccan background go to trade schools, compared with 55% of the native Dutch.
Jobs market
On the jobs market, the unemployment rate among young men from ethnic minorities fell from 27% in 2005 to 15% last year. In the native population, the jobless rate fell by just 3%. However, non-western immigrants are twice as likely to be on a temporary or flexible contract than their white peers, the report shows.
The unemployment rate among highly-educated second generation immigrants is now equal to that among native Dutch people, the CBS said. ‘Nevertheless, the position of non-white immigrants remains vulnerable, particularly at times of economic downturn.’
Crime
The CBS survey also indicates that young men of Moroccan and Antillean origin are still strongly over-represented in the crime figures. They are three times as likely to have a criminal record than their white counterparts and 89% of them will re-offend within 10 years, the CBS says.
But non-western immigrants are also more likely to be victims of crime – especially young men, according to the CBS figures.

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