The government must do more to regulate labour migration, focusing on attracting skilled foreign workers needed to sustain the economy and improving their living situations, economic advisory body SER has said in its latest recommendation to the caretaker cabinet.

“The Dutch economy is partly dependent on foreign workers, but there are limits to what our society can cope with,” SER warned in its report titled “Fewer where possible, better [conditions] where necessary”.

The healthcare and tech sectors, which face huge staff shortages, remain dependent on foreign workers, SER said, but investment in robotisation and automation, for instance, in farming, is being hampered by the reliance on cheap foreign labour.

The organisation also said that the government must be much more active in rooting out the exploitation of foreign workers by jobs agencies and employers using higher fines, more inspectors and quicker action.

SER estimated the number of foreign workers in the Netherlands to be between 735,000 and 1.1 million. Many of the lower-skilled workers, particularly from Eastern Europe, are still suffering from exploitative practices, such as substandard accommodation, dangerous working conditions and inadequate pay.

Thousands of migrant workers are also fired on the spot every year, often without any justification.

SER wants a two-month income guarantee for low-skilled workers so they don’t find themselves without a job and accommodation from one day to the next. This falls short of giving labour migrants a fixed contract to improve job security and prevent accidents, as the work safety council OVV recently recommended in a report.

According to SER chair Kim Putters, the timing of the recommendation, just weeks ahead of the elections, is not a problem. Labour migration will be an important election issue, he said.