Fact sheet ‘ESF in the Netherlands’

As results over this period show, nearly 94 thousand people at a distance from the labour market took part in a project which was subsidised by the European Social Fund (ESF). In all, 70 labour market projects ran in the period 2014-2015 and these received a total amount of 114 million euros in ESF grants. The first results show that 20 percent of the participants who completed a project in 2015 found a job.

In the period 2014-2020, ESF issues grants to boost employment opportunities in member states. In the Netherlands, a large part of the funding is used under the theme of active inclusion. In concrete terms, this involves countering youth unemployment and increasing labour market suitability of people who are distanced from the labour market. This includes people with occupational disabilities, unemployed people aged 50 years or older, people without an income from employment or social welfare such as (low educated) women, people with a foreign background and detainees; also included in the target group are (ex-)students from secondary special education and practical education.

The current ESF programme runs from 2014 to 2020. In total, an amount of 507 million euros has been earmarked for the Netherlands to fund these projects. In the ESF monitor 2014-2020, all participants from this programme period are being followed through time, in order to obtain data on their labour market position, from the end of their individual track to twelve months afterwards.
The previous programme ran from 2007 to 2013 and had a total of 813 thousand participants. Over this period as well, CBS produced the reports commissioned by SZW.