Those who will be in intercity wagon 8730 from mid-December can thank status holder Mohammad (26) for the flattering fluorescent light. That breeze at the ankles? Also the work of the Iranian. Just like the information screens on which departing trains are shown. As a mechanic, Mohammad is putting the finishing touches to the wiring of the train set in the NS workshop today. Quite exciting, he thinks. Especially for someone who had barely held a screwdriver until recently.
The presence of an unqualified status holder is also a novelty for his department head Erik Koning. Until recently, the workshop in Haarlem, where intercity trains are being modernized, only employed trained technicians. That was before Koning made a phone call to Randstad employment agency this winter – he needed temporary workers – and was told: the pond is empty. Then suddenly he had to tap from a completely different barrel. So status holders.
Until recently, status holders hardly came into the picture
Koning is not the only employer that status holders have overlooked until now. While about 80 percent of Ukrainian refugees found work within eight months, only 42 percent of the refugees who came to the Netherlands in 2014 are in work after seven years, according to figures from Statistics Netherlands (CBS). . While among these 158 thousand refugees there is indeed employment potential. In addition to the well-known ‘Syrian engineer’, there are also the practical educated who have a crying shortage.
The fact that status holders did not come into the picture until recently is not because they massively ‘resign their job to be on benefits’, as VVD MP Thierry Aartsen recently claimed. According to researcher Jaco Dagevos of the Social and Cultural Planning Office, it has more to do with obstacles they encounter. For example, refugees are not allowed to work in the first six months of their stay in the Netherlands. After that, they are allowed to do so for a maximum of 24 weeks to prevent them from building up unemployment benefits – the right to unemployment benefit.
If they later receive a residence status, they have already made a false start on the labor market. Add to this the fact that status holders often do not have valid diplomas and speak poor Dutch. ‘That requires extra guidance from the employer’, says Dagevos. ‘There was little enthusiasm for this in the broad labor market, but now I hear more and more that status holders come to the municipality for language lessons and have already found work. That’s really new. Apparently they come into the picture now that all other labor reserves have been exhausted.’
Along the coffee houses by bike
The recruitment of status holders does require a lot of creativity, Koning noted. Many of them do not know how to find their way to work on their own. So the work went looking for them. That is to say: Koning enlisted the help of Wendel Röntgen, a Randstad employee who has experience with ’emptying card bins (the benefit file, red.) of municipalities’. Röntgen used his proven tool for this: a black Azor men’s bicycle.
He then cycled past coffee houses, neighborhood centers, housing locations and municipal counters. In this way he gathered seventeen status holders, including a farmer from Syria, a Sudanese car mechanic and an Afghan writer. Some already had some experience with technology, with others Röntgen had his doubts. In order to estimate their qualities, they had to connect a hotel switch to a test set-up by the municipality of Amsterdam. One candidate dropped out: a colorblind Somali could not distinguish black thread from red.
The Eritrean Nahom (32), who is working with 20 kilometers of electric wire in the NS workshop, did come through the ballot. In Eritrea he was still studying excavations as an archeology student, but now he is busy with high and low voltage. Of course Nahom would have liked to resume his studies in the Netherlands, but then he would have spent six years without income in college. Now he can combine his work with the MBO course in Mechatronics, which all status holders follow at NS. ‘And because I have this job, my children may soon be able to fulfill my dream.’
The tight labor market offers opportunities to groups that were previously without a chance 
According to Röntgen, the NS project shows that the tight labor market offers opportunities to groups that previously had virtually no chance. There are plenty of them: there are still around a million Dutch people who do want to work. ‘Many employers always said they wanted something with these people, but when it came down to it there were all ifs and buts.’ They seem to have disappeared due to staff shortages, he notes. “It’s real hunting season, sometimes two arms and two legs are enough to get to work.”
Although employers must be careful not to set the bar too low, Röntgen believes. ‘Because then these people will be out again during the next reorganisation.’ Moreover, this sudden interest in the neglected labor force itself also takes some getting used to. According to the consultant, they have been labeled as a problem so often that they have come to believe it themselves. ‘That’s why I always ask them: do you dare to believe that you can be the solution?’
At least they are seen that way at the NS. Koning is already thinking about starting new classes. There are even plans in the making to deploy status holders as conductors. The status holders themselves are also happy to get started. ‘Because sitting at home only makes you tired’, says Mohammad. And the traveler can assess the result himself from December, when all the work has been checked.