Refugee settlement agency COA is spending an estimated €4 million a week putting asylum seekers up in hotels because of the shortage of alternative accommodation, the Telegraaf said on Monday.

In total, some 8,000 asylum seekers are living in 50 different hotels and holiday parks, the paper said. At the same time, the bill for failing to limit the number of people sleeping at the Ter Apel reception centre, has risen to over €270,000 – money which the COA has been ordered by judges to pay in compensation to the local council.

While the negotiations between the COA and the hotels are secret, the agency has said that emergency accommodation costs €77 per person a day – which is twice the rate for living in a refugee centre.

And that, the paper says, is good news to hotel groups such as Van der Valk, Holiday Inn, Campanile, Mercure and Fletcher which get a guarantee they will be fully booked and need to provide three meals a day.

At the end of January, the caretaker cabinet said it was allocating a further €600 million for refugees this year, on top of the €4 billion in the budget.

The impact of legislation to ensure a fairer spread of refugees around the country and which requires all local authorities to provide some housing, will not be felt until 2025. But officials hope that will cut the accommodation bill considerably.

Meanwhile, a report by economic research group SEO suggest that if refugees are allowed to work under the same conditions as people fleeing the war in Ukraine, they could generate an additional €2 billion for the economy over a 10 year period.

Asylum seekers are currently restricted in how long they may work and each application to work needs to be approved.

However, refugees form a much needed reserve for the labour market and once they are working will contribute taxes and spending power to the economy, SEO said.

In addition, “refugees who work are healthier and happier, integrate in society more quickly, and contribute more in other ways to Dutch society,” the report said.