CBS shows fewer arrivals, while vacancies, automation costs and labour controls still press on small firms.
At 7.40 on a Tuesday morning, a small technical firm has a familiar problem on the planning board. The same customer job has moved again. Not because the client changed the order. Not because the parts are missing. The engineer who can sign off the work still has not been found.
The signal has to become readable
CBS gave the wider frame on 30 June 2026. In 2025, 309 thousand people immigrated to the Netherlands, 8 thousand fewer than in 2024. The sharper business detail sits underneath that number: non-EU/EFTA highly skilled migrants fell to 13.9 thousand, down from 26.2 thousand in 2022.
I read this as a labour-supply warning, not as a political slogan. Lower immigration may sound like less pressure on the country. For an employer, it can also mean fewer candidates in the channels where scarce specialist work is filled.
Fewer arrivals, same pressure
Dutch immigration total has now fallen for three years in a row, after the 2022 peak that was strongly shaped by Ukraine. CBS also reports that immigration from both EU/EFTA and non-EU/EFTA countries was lower in 2025. Immigration by people with Dutch nationality remained broadly stable.
That is the population frame. The market frame is sharper. At the end of the first quarter of 2026, CBS counted 378 thousand open vacancies. Unemployment stood at 4.0 percent. There were 91 vacancies for every 100 unemployed people.
Care, trade, and business services together held more than half of those vacancies. UWV adds the occupational view. The labour market cooled further in the first quarter of 2026, but 87 of 93 occupational groups were still tight or very tight. Technical occupations and care and welfare roles remained especially short.
A cooler labour market is not the same as an easy one.
The specialist channel matters
Highly skilled migration is not only a matter for large technology firms. A small manufacturer may need a maintenance engineer. A care provider may need specialist staff. An advisory office may need a finance controller or data worker. A software supplier with six people may lose months if one senior developer cannot be replaced.
What the signal changes
That is why the fall in non-EU/EFTA highly skilled migrants matters. It narrows one route through which scarce work enters the Dutch economy. Other non-EU/EFTA labour migration rose slightly to 4.8 thousand in 2025, from 4.4 thousand in 2024. That does not replace the same skills one for one.
The asylum and Ukraine figures belong to another part of the same national story. CBS counted 34.5 thousand registered asylum migrants in 2025. More than 28 thousand displaced people from Ukraine came under the European Temporary Protection Directive. For employers with Ukrainian workers, continuity also depends on that temporary-protection framework, which Rijksoverheid says runs at least until 4 March 2027.
The ledger feels it first
Back at the technical firm, the missing engineer does not appear as a neat policy issue. It appears as delayed invoicing, extra subcontractor cost, a tired senior employee, and a customer who starts asking whether the deadline is still real.
This is where the market pulse reaches the accounts. Vacancies slow work that could otherwise be billed. Scarce workers lift wages, recruitment costs, agency rates, relocation costs, and training time.
At the same moment, CBS reported business confidence at -14.8 in the second quarter of 2026, with all sectors negative. Passing higher labour costs to customers is not always easy when buyers are watching their own bills.
Automation is becoming the common answer. CBS reported that nearly two thirds of companies had staff shortages in April 2026. Most of those companies put more emphasis on automation. For about 30 percent of all companies, automation was the main measure. For a small firm, automation is not magic capacity. It is a cash decision before it becomes a productivity gain.
Hiring is now a control question
The state is also tightening the labour routes around the employer. Rijksoverheid announced plans in July 2025 to tighten the highly skilled migrant scheme, including higher salary criteria and stricter scrutiny of recognised sponsors. Sponsor discipline is not only an HR concern. It touches payroll evidence, wage compliance, financial conduct, and clean records.
What founders should check
Temporary labour is moving in the same direction. From 1 January 2028, labour providers such as temporary work agencies, secondment agencies, and payroll companies may operate only with official admission from the Nederlandse Autoriteit Uitleenmarkt. Companies may then hire labour migrants only through admitted labour providers.
That turns agency selection into supplier control. The cheapest staffing route may become expensive if the chain cannot stand daylight.
The contractor route also needs sober reading. The Belastingdienst enforcement moratorium on labour relationships ended on 1 January 2025. From 1 January 2026, culpability penalties can be imposed in false self-employment cases, while default penalties will still not be imposed in 2026. When a zzp worker fills a role that looks like employment, the tax risk belongs in the labour plan.
The calm work before the vacancy
For micro and small businesses, the useful question is no longer only who can we find. It is which route can we afford, prove, house, schedule, retain, and defend if someone asks how the work is arranged.
A sensible owner will know which roles would stop revenue within three months if left open. The same owner will know which workers come through payroll, sponsorship, agency, secondment, zzp, EU mobility, or temporary protection. That is not paperwork for its own sake. It is the map of the company’s real capacity.
The Dutch labour market is no longer at its hottest point. It is still tight where firms need specific hands and heads. Lower immigration does not remove that pressure. It changes the shape of it.
The technical firm with the postponed job does not need a grand theory. It needs a hiring plan that matches the market, a cash plan that survives delay, and labour routes that can stand daylight. That is the quiet work behind the CBS number.
Sources
- CBS source
- CBS – Latest population growth after 2025
- CBS – Asylum requests and following family members in Q1 2026
- Rijksoverheid – Ukraine temporary protection and transition planning
- CBS – Labour-market tightness in Q1 2026
- UWV – Occupational shortage pressure
- CBS – Employer response to staff shortages
- CBS – Business confidence and operating constraints
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The Polder is written for readers who need the Dutch business environment translated into practical meaning. Corrections, source policy and editorial accountability are part of the publication record.
