It should be easier for companies to bring in highly qualified staff from outside the Netherlands on short-term contracts, social affairs minister Lodewijk Asscher is quoted as saying at a conference earlier this week.

According to the Financieele Dagblad, Asscher said at the opening of the Fieldlab Sociale Innovatie meeting in Marknesse, that entry policy should be simpler so it becomes easier for people to move here. The government’s influential SER think-tank, in which both unions and employers are represented, made a similar plea earlier this year.

The current rules make it very difficult for companies to employ IT experts from outside Europe for a few months, the FD says.

Asscher has already told parliament that he wants to simplify the rules. ‘We don’t want clever Dutch workers to leave without being able to replace them with clever foreign professionals,’ he is quoted as saying.