Labour market participation of status holders

Despite tight labour market conditions, the employment rate of status holders remains far below that of the rest of the Dutch labour force. Most status holders, moreover, are working part time on temporary contracts and are highly dependent on welfare benefits. Many of them are living in poverty.

Status holders are asylum seekers who have been granted a temporary residence permit on humanitarian grounds for a period of 5 years at most. They are required to integrate into Dutch society and pass the civic integration examination within 3 years on penalty of a fine. The examination (or in some circumstances an exemption) is necessary to apply for naturalisation.

The previous Civic Integration Act (WI2013) did not facilitate labour market participation; it did not link participation to civic integration. The new Civic Integration Act (WI2021) includes the social goal of ‘fast and complete participation in Dutch society, preferably through paid employment’. The act hopes to achieve this by means of ‘duality’: the combination of participation and Dutch language lessons. The new act again decentralises civic integration by delegating more management and administrative tasks to municipalities. The State Secretary for Justice and Security, however, remains fully responsible for the policy and partially for its implementation.

What are we auditing?

We are auditing whether the WI2021 is likely to help status holders quickly find and remain in appropriate paid employment. In particular, we will look at what implementation of the act means in practice for status holders, municipal officials, employers and other stakeholders.

Why are we carrying out this audit?

Long-term unemployment is detrimental to the position of status holders in the labour market, their mental and physical health, social network and command of Dutch. Furthermore, their unemployment has a negative impact on the benefit burden and labour market in the Netherlands.

The previous Civic Integration Act was heavily criticised by the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (2015), the Netherlands Court of Audit (2017) and the National Ombudsman (2018). This audit will ask whether the new act is likely to achieve its social goal.

Do you want to take part in this audit?

The Court of Audit invites you to share any information you may have that would benefit our audit. We appreciate all contributions, knowledge and experience you may care to share with us on this topic. Simply send an email to bijdrage@rekenkamer.nl.

We read all emails carefully and treat them in confidence. However, we are not able to reply to every contribution we receive.