Flemish Employment minister wants tougher rules on labour migration

Flemish Employment minister Zuhal Demir wants to tighten labour migration rules. Work permits will no longer be guaranteed for bottleneck vacancies and employers will have to search their own labour market for longer, writes De Tijd on Wednesday.

Last year, the Flemish government issued almost 19,000 work permits to non-EU workers. The number of single permits, for those who want to work and live in Flanders for more than 90 days, has increased by 70 percent compared to the average of the last five years.

Demir says the increase is largely due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine: around 25 per cent of all single permits went to Ukrainian nationals last year. The increase in permits is likely to be temporary, she says.

Nevertheless, Demir wants to see the rules on labour migration tightened. "Today, single permits are being abused for cheap labour and we want to put a stop to that," Demir told De Tijd. "These figures only confirm the need to tighten [the rules]."

"Today, single permits are being abused for cheap labour and we want to put a stop to that"

Non-EU nationals will no longer be guaranteed a single permit if they match the vacancies for one of Flanders' 251 bottleneck jobs. And companies seeking to hire medium-skilled profiles - which apply for a faster procedure - will have to prove they have looked at least 9 weeks for a candidate from Belgium or the EU first.

With these measures, Demir wants to give priority to local labour solutions. Demir wants to activate Flemish workers first, attract workers from Brussels and Wallonia second, and look for EU workers as a last step.

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Unhappy employers

Flanders had more than 58,000 vacancies last year that could not be filled by local workers, and single permits are one way for companies to fill these gaps. Employers are not happy with the changes, fearing they will lose talent to other EU countries with looser labour laws.

"For companies, it is gradually becoming hopeless to find welders and road workers"

"For companies, it is gradually becoming hopeless to find welders and road workers," says Hans Maertens, managing director of employers' organisation Voka. "Not only should the procedures be speeded up, but more jobs should also be included in the list for a faster procedure."

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