Netherlands needs more international tech skills

The already huge tech sector in the Netherlands is growing faster than expected, and now needs highly-skilled international professionals.

The significant growth in the sector is both good and bad news, as there aren’t enough home-grown tech specialists to satisfy its increasing demands. At the present time, some 286,000 employees are working in the Netherlands’ tech industries and start-ups, with an estimated 120,000 more needed by 2030. Between 2018 and 2030, 70,00 employed tech workers are scheduled to retire and must be replaced, along with increased growth in the sector needing at least 50,000 more employees.

According to industry specialist and senior economist at ING Bank Jurjen Witteveen, finding new expat talent is essential at this point in the industry’s development. The sector grew by 10 per cent last years and is expected to surpass that number by the end of this year. Dutch research and technical universities are doing their best to produce more Dutch tech specialists, but are finding the task daunting at best. The Netherlands is now famous for its tech sector, and is especially respected for its advanced value-added activity.

During his interview with an international media outlet, Witteveen explained that rather than designing and manufacturing necessities such as tyres and computer chips, the Netherlands tech sector is concentrating on making the machines which make the chips and tyres. Executives use research findings to fine-tune market strategies and point the way forward to more innovation in the future. In order to maintain this impetus, the country needs to win the global war for tech talent.

Witteveen’s strategy includes intensive lobbying of international universities and schools in order to persuade talented graduates to consider a career based in the Netherlands. For example, the ultra high-tech company ASML is based in Eindhoven already employs people from 100 nationalities, and needs even more expats to expand its research into the technology used in electric cars. Eindhoven itself is home to an impressive cluster of high-tech companies and has strong links to China. On March 22, the KPN telecom company along with HighTechXL will host an event aimed at seeking out the brightest and best high-tech brains to help shape the mobile/cable giant’s future.