News item | 18-11-2022 | 2:30 pm
The scheme for the Asian catering industry will be permanently cancelled. Since January 1, 2022, the scheme had already been stopped for new cases. This has been decided by the Council of Ministers on the proposal of Minister Van Gennip of Social Affairs and Employment. The scheme made it easier for Asian restaurants in the Netherlands to employ specialist chefs from outside the European Economic Area (EEA).
The Dutch Labor Inspectorate (NLA) report on the Asian catering industry played an important role in the decision to definitively abolish the scheme. In the Asian hospitality industry report, the Labor Inspectorate finds that about half of the inspected hospitality companies violate the regulations. The Labor Inspectorate suspected serious discrimination, human trafficking, employment of illegal immigrants or other criminal offenses at a number of employers.
The government is adopting the recommendation from the Labor Inspectorate report not to introduce new special regulations such as the Asian catering regulations from 2019. In addition, attention to abuses remains necessary, as does attention to the entire process of policy and regulations, prevention and identification, implementation, supervision, enforcement and investigation. The sector representatives also see this importance. They have indicated that they are fully committed to a safe and reliable working environment for (Asian) cooks.
The lapse of the scheme does not mean that the sector would no longer be able to bring personnel from outside the EU to the Netherlands. The generic framework, which applies to employers in all sectors, also applies to the Asian hospitality sector. This means that the conditions of the Foreign Nationals Employment Act (Wav) must be met. For example, the employer will have to demonstrate that it has made sufficient recruitment efforts to fill the vacancy with offers within the Netherlands, the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland. The regular period of five weeks for reporting a vacancy to the UWV also applies.
Between October 1, 2019 and October 1, 2022, there was a structural arrangement for granting a work permit for the Asian hospitality sector. As a result of signals of human trafficking and/or human smuggling, the scheme had already expired on 1 January 2022 for new applications from abroad.