Relatively few international knowledge workers in the Netherlands

In the period 2003/2005, there were on average 221 thousand international knowledge workers in the Netherlands. This number stood at 383 thousand (up by 73 percent) in the period 2016/2018. In 2003/2005, they still held a 2.7-percent share in the labour force, versus 4.2 percent in 2016/2018. Of the European countries surveyed, Luxembourg had the largest share of knowledge workers in the labour force in the period 2016/2018 at 26 percent.

In this survey, international knowledge workers are defined as all highly educated persons who have lived in a certain country (sometimes for many years) but were born in another country. This definition enables comparison between countries. To a lesser degree, this applies to the related concept of knowledge migrants, who are only registered as such in the year of entry and for whom migration policies and schemes may differ from one country to another.

Limited growth of international knowledge workers

The rise in the proportion of international knowledge workers is modest in the Netherlands when compared against developments in the EU countries surveyed. In more than half of these countries, the percentage share of international knowledge workers has at least doubled. Of the countries directly surrounding the Netherlands, the United Kingdom is particularly striking. Here, both the proportion of knowledge workers in 2016/2018 (9 percent) and the growth relative to 2003/2005 were considerably higher than in the Netherlands.

Knowledge workers in the Netherlands often have a high occupational level

In the Netherlands, knowledge workers are likely to hold a position at their own qualification level. In 2016/2018, two-thirds were working at a high occupational level, for example as a manager or an engineer. This puts the Netherlands behind the leading countries of Luxembourg and Switzerland but slightly ahead of its neighbours Belgium, the United Kingdom and Germany.

At 6.2 percent, the unemployment rate among international knowledge workers in the Netherlands in 2016/2018 was lower than in most other European countries. It was also lower than unemployment among people with a migration background in the Dutch labour force (8.4 percent in 2016/2018, on average). The overall unemployment rate averaged 4.9 percent in this period.

Share of international knowledge workers in manufacturing relatively low

The majority of international knowledge workers are active in the non-commercial services sector (35 percent), followed by the commercial services sector (28 percent). In the neighbouring countries, the share of international knowledge workers who are active in the services sector (both commercial and non-commercial) is higher in Belgium and the United Kingdom than in the Netherlands. When looking at Germany, the same applies to the construction sector. The Netherlands has relative few knowledge workers in this sector, namely 11 percent.

Largest share of self-employed found in the Netherlands

In the period 2016/2018, the Netherlands held the largest share of self-employed international knowledge workers among all the European countries surveyed, namely 20 percent. Together with the United Kingdom, it was also the only country where the share of self-employed increased relative to 2003/2005.

The number of self-employed international knowledge workers in the Netherlands has more than doubled, to 71 thousand. In 2016/2018, these workers were mainly found in the commercial services sector (41 percent), followed by the non-commercial services sector (33 percent). Their representation in the sectors trade (16 percent) and construction (4 percent) was relatively low. Of the sectors mentioned here, construction and non-commercial services both had declining shares of independent knowledge workers.