The outgoing government has decided to maintain the scheme that allows employers to withhold part of low-skilled foreign workers’ housing cost, arguing it could worsen their living conditions.

Employers are currently allowed to keep back around €144 a week (25% of the minimum wage) from seasonal workers’ earnings to pay for their accommodation – but the practice has been slammed for leaving workers homeless once their job ends.

The outgoing government had pledged to phase it out from January next year. But caretaker social affairs minister Mariëlle Paul has now said that with affordable housing in such short supply in the Netherlands, many workers would struggle to find accommodation without employer involvement.

In addition, she said, that the current system allows the government to set minimum quality standards for housing and employers can only deduct rent if the accommodation is certified. “If we abolish the scheme, we lose that supervision,” she wrote.

Delays

Legislation designed to stop low-skilled workers from abroad from being exploited by staffing agencies has been delayed numerous times.   

Plans to require staffing agencies to get formal approval from the ministry before being allowed to operate and pay a deposit of €100,000 as evidence of their commitment to pay workers properly and meet tax and premium obligations has also been postponed.

Both the licence and breaking the link between work and housing are among the recommendations made in a report by former SP leader Emile Roemer to protect foreign workers in 2020. 

According to some estimates, there are currently 14,000 staffing agencies operating in the Netherlands. Some 500,000 people from other EU countries work in Netherlands, mainly in farming, distribution centres, factories and the meat industry.

“I don’t want to suggest that nothing has been done,” Roemer told the Volkskrant on Monday. “But you cannot blame me for concluding that after five years, things are moving very slowly. And we are talking about major injustices which are happening every day.”