21 MAR 2023
Data insights

Skills anticipation in the Netherlands (2022 Update)

Previous Next

Summary

Overview of the Dutch approach

The Netherlands has a long-held tradition of using detailed economic analysis in policy making. In line with this, the country has conducted systematic skills anticipation exercises in some form or other for more than 60 years. Currently it undertakes:

  • skills assessments, reviewing past trends at national and sectoral levels and assessing how various drivers of change will affect future skills demand;
  • skill forecasts, combined with other data to provide input into skills assessments;
  • Skills foresight analysis, undertaken on an ad hoc basis to review particular aspects of future skill demand; and
  • surveys of school leavers, which among other things, aim at measuring the relevance of current educational qualifications to the needs of the labour market.

The general tendency in the Netherlands has been towards a decentralised system where national skills assessments are augmented by independently conducted sectoral analysis.

The results of skills anticipation exercises are used extensively by policymakers as well as relevant stakeholders. The information is especially influential in shaping educational policy, where many programmes and curricula are modified or created with the intent of satisfying the future needs of the labour market. Moreover, stakeholders and social partners play an active part in developing these policies and programmes. At a local level, authorities regularly work with businesses and other stakeholders to formulate policies that respond to projected trends and developments within the labour market.

Description

The Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (Researchcentrum voor onderwijs en arbeidsmarkt, ROA), a research institute at Maastricht University, is responsible for conducting and publishing bi-annual general labour market forecasts. This six-year outlook is prepared under the Project Education and Labour Market (Project Onderwijs en Arbeidsmarkt, POA), which is funded by several national ministries, public sector organisations, and a private human resource consulting firm.

In addition, ROA conducts regular surveys to monitor school-leavers and analyse their first steps into the labour market. The Dutch Employee Insurance Agency (Uitvoeringsinstituut Werknemersverzekeringen, UWV) studies labour trends and conducts analyses using data from Statistics Netherlands (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, CBS), their own datasets collected from individuals seeking unemployment benefits, as well as the ROA labour market forecasts. UWV publishes a short-term two-year labour market forecast at sectoral, regional and national levels to facilitate transparency and enable a better match between employers and job seekers.[i] CBS not only provides data on the labour market but also publishes its own reports and analyses of historical data. Finally, the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (Centraal Planbureau, CPB) periodically publishes short and medium term economic forecasts, which include information on the labour market (employment, labour supply, and unemployment)[ii] as well as detailed reports on topics related to skills and skills mismatch.

In the Netherlands, there is also a tradition of forecasting within specific sectors. These forecasts are usually short-term but still provide a detailed view of sectoral trends and developments. The Cooperative for Vocational Education, Training and the Labour Market (Samenwerkingsorganisatie Beroepsonderwijs Bedrijfsleven, SBB) collects information on demand for, and supply of, skills in labour markets for senior secondary vocational education. These data also incorporate the ROA forecasts. There is close cooperation between SBB, ROA, and UWV. Many sectoral level organisations also publish facts and figures for the benefit of their members as well as others. One example of these exercises is the analysis ROA conducts on the Dutch metalworking and electrical engineering sectors at the request of Stichting A+O Metalektro.[iii]

Aims

Skills anticipation in the Netherlands seeks to provide labour market stakeholders with information on possible skills mismatches so that the market can proactively establish policies to avoid them. In addition, skills anticipation aims to answer more specific questions, such as how to attract personnel into various occupations or whether any occupations may become redundant within certain sectors or industries.

The overall approach to, and activities of, skills anticipation are also intended to inform policymakers within the education system, so that they design programmes and qualifications that are as relevant as possible to the needs of the Dutch labour market. The information generated by skills anticipation exercises is therefore to be used on a regular basis to review curricula and decide if new types of training or educational programmes should be offered.

Legal framework

No information is available on the regulatory framework underpinning skills anticipation in the Netherlands. The SBB has a legal mandate to provide information to intermediate vocational education institutions and to businesses about the labour market, professional development and the effectiveness of the education system’s output.

Since 2013, the Sustainable Public Finances Act (Wet Houdbare Overheidsfinanciën) prescribes CPB forecasts as the official basis for the central government’s annual fiscal budget.[iv]

Governance

The following ministries are responsible for skills anticipation:

The OCW takes a leading role, although the SZW is also active. Together the two ministries are also responsible for ensuring there is a match between the education provided in the Netherlands and the qualifications needed in the labour market. The SBB is subordinate to the OCW and advises the ministers in the OCW and EZK about the match between the vocational education and training (VET) system in the Netherlands and the labour market. The UWV is subordinate to SZW.

The CPB is subordinate to the EZK but the institution is mostly independent, being completely autonomous in its choice of projects. The role of the ministry regarding the institution is appointing the director and providing its budget.

The role of stakeholders

The main stakeholders are employers, trade associations, and education and training institutions. These stakeholders all serve to some extent to augment the outputs of the system by providing comments and, in some cases, additional data. Many sectors produce their own skills assessment, most of which are usually commissioned by stakeholders within them. These analyses are used by the national ones offering more detailed insights in each individual sector.

At the national level, stakeholders are usually involved in policy making in some way, for example by being consulted on new laws or regulations. In addition, the SBB also hosts sector-specific knowledge centres (Kenniscentra), which provide input and commentary on new laws and regulations. There are also various other projects or workshops that involve stakeholders conducted on an ad hoc basis.[v] One example, cited by the ROA, is the Techniekpact project, which is an ongoing collaboration between three ministries (OCW, SZW, and EZK) and a large number of regional and sectoral stakeholders. The project supports and increases education within the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields in response to projections of a large shortages in these areas over the coming decade. In June 2018, all partners of the Technology Pact identified four urgent themes on which a collective effort is needed to achieve accelerated results: (i) increasing the use of technology in education and economy; (ii) greater involvement of business in technical education; (iii) promoting lifelong development in technology; and (iv) reduce teacher shortages in technology, including through “hybrid teachers” (an emerging category of multidisciplinary teachers). In addition, in 2019, the ROA published the latest yearly-based report on Techniekpact pact 2020.

At the regional level, the most important contacts are between the several VET institutes (which are members of the SBB) and various smaller and medium-sized local businesses. These institutions and businesses work closely together, both in designing solutions to cope with foreseeable skills mismatches as well as in developing new policy responses.

In Dutch politics, there is a long-held tradition of trying to reach a consensus between all related parties and stakeholders. As such, the relevant stakeholders are usually included in some form in the creation of policies that affect them. In addition, the Netherlands also has a long tradition of producing sectoral skills projections. These exercises are usually conducted or commissioned by stakeholders within each sector, either by individual organisations or consortia of the most relevant players within the industry. Such sectoral analyses serve to augment the more general assessments of the ROA, the UWV, the CBS and the CPB by offering a more detailed look at these specific sectors. Additionally, the presence of sectoral projections greatly increases the dissemination of information since the entities that undertake these studies usually have very close ties to the labour market within each sector.

Target groups

Young people and jobseekers are the main target groups who will benefit from the information provided by skills anticipation, as they will be able to base their educational choices on labour market information. In particular, the general labour market prognoses published under the ROA explicitly aim to inform students about labour market prospects in their studies or career choices, and education institutes about the relevance of their programmes to the labour market.[vi] It is also intended for employers, who can use the data to proactively respond to any possible trends or mismatches in the market. Furthermore, different groups of policymakers can also benefit from additional information about the labour market when making decisions on which education or training programmes to establish, abolish or amend.

Funding and resources

The ROA is funded by the OCW, the SZW, the BZK, the EZK, Randstad Nederland (a human resource consultancy firm), and the SBB. The ROA’s sectoral research on the metalworking and electrical engineering sector, however, is fully funded by the trade association, A+O Metalektro Foundation.

The UWV is financed by the SZW and the SBB by the OCW. Both the CBS and the CPB are funded by EZK.

As for other sector specific exercises, they are usually funded by stakeholders within each sector.

Methods and tools

There are various tools used in undertaking skills anticipation in the Netherlands.

Skills assessment

Both the ROA and the UWV produce regular forecasts of skill demand by using occupation and qualification as proxy measures of skill. These are integrated with other data to provide a well-rounded assessment of labour market developments. They have been classified as skills assessments, given their broader methodological approach, rather than solely as a forecast.

In 2019, ROA conducted a survey of more than 1100 employers in the Netherlands. It included a stated-preferences experiment in which employers were repeatedly asked to choose between two hypothetical job applicants for a hypothetical vacancy in the most common entry-level job. The two job applicants were said to be identical with the exception of several characteristics that varied randomly within and across the choices. This method allows for causal interpretations about which competencies influence the probability that employers will offer graduates a job, which competencies are most important and which trade-offs employers make between different competencies[vii].

Skills forecasts

Initiated by the ROA, the Project Onderwijs-Arbeidsmarkt (POA) commenced its activities in 1986 with the aim to analyse trends and developments in the Dutch labour market. The main objective of the skills forecasting activities was to produce an independent, scientifically robust, econometric forecast model that would allow stakeholders (employers, employees, sector associations, and education institutions) to anticipate trends in skills supply and demand and their potential mismatch. Today, the POA produces a general labour market forecast every second year, which makes projections over six years into the future. It differentiates between 35 labour market regions, 21 economic sectors, 114 occupations, and 97 types of qualifications. The forecasts are made using a variety of econometric models as well as data on demographics and labour markets obtained from the CBS and the CPB. The main outputs of these assessments are early warning indicators of possible imbalances between supply and demand in the labour market. These indicators, as well as other information produced by the exercises, are fed into the Labour Market Information System (Arbeidsmarktinformatiesysteem, AIS) online database. The detailed information in this labour market information system is freely accessible for the funders of the POA and is delivered to stakeholders. The project produces reports on specific topics, technical reports (for example on the methods used for the forecasts), and a biannual report on the labour market forecasts. The biannual reports are part of a series called Labour Market by Education and Occupation to [year] (De arbeidsmarkt naar opleiding en beroep tot [jaar]).[viii]

The UWV cooperates closely with ROA, but also performs an assessment on its own. The agency studies labour market trends using both the statistics produced by CBS as well as data it collects by itself. It produces a projection for the coming year, which is published yearly in the Labour Market Forecast (Arbeidsmarktprognose) series of publications.[ix] These projections are for the overall labour market as well as for individual sectors. They are based on models which consider several factors, such as the demographic projections from the CBS, the macroeconomic projections published by the CPB, migration trends, and possible productivity changes. Recently, there has also been more of an emphasis on regional projections. The UWV also hosts a website where most of its labour market information can be found.

CBS periodically produces in-depth articles on current developments in the labour market. It also publishes a series of regular reports entitled Dynamics of the Dutch Labour Market (Dynamiek op de Nederlandse arbeidsmarkt), which provide a snapshot of the current state of the market.[x]

In addition to the above there are also several smaller projects and exercises, most of which are limited to specific sectors or occupations. These are usually conducted by relevant stakeholders within the sector, such as trade unions or employers’ confederations; ROA’s project on behalf of Stichting A+O Metalektro, called Labour Market Monitor Metalelektro (Arbeidsmarktmonitor Metalelektro), is a relevant example.

Skills foresight

Since 1945, the CPB has conducted research and issued recommendations on all aspects of the Dutch economy. The agency occasionally directs its attention to specific issues regarding skills mismatch and anticipation.[xi]

The Sociaal Economische Raad (Social Economic Council, SER) – one of the main advisory bodies of the parliament and the government on socio-economic policy – has produced a number of prospective studies focusing on the labour market and the future of education. For instance, in 2015, the SER committee responsible for labour market and education issues investigated the future of learning in a changing labour market. Furthermore, the SER initiated Platform 2032, which facilitated a national dialogue and analytical exploration of the future of education in the Netherlands.[xii] ROA has published several reports on education, skills and labour market to give a detailed description of the Dutch labour market.

Other skills anticipation practices

In addition to its skills assessment activities, the ROA has also conducted surveys amongst school leavers since the early 1990s. These surveys (Schoolverlatersonderzoeken) are sent to a large number of school leavers, both those leaving with and without qualifications. For example, since 1990 the ROA has conducted the HBO-Monitor, commissioned by the Council for higher vocational education institutions (HBO Raad).[xiii]

These surveys facilitate an assessment of how recent graduates of the education system progress in the job market, whether they find jobs, and whether these jobs are in line with their qualifications. The surveys are standardised, which ensures comparability between years and allows the results to be used in policy making. They are used as a tool to track to what extent qualifications match the needs of the labour market.

The public employment service, UWV, is currently analysing future skills needs with an up to 5-year horizon. It uses descriptive statistics/stock taking, quantitative forecasting, skills and jobs surveys (questionnaire surveys), graduate tracer studies, foresight (using experts’ workshops / meetings / panels, analysis of registered data from CVs database of formerly unemployed people and big data (use of web scraping/web crawling to access and gather data) to assess and anticipate skill needs. UWV reports on skills demand and supply on a quarterly and annual basis[xiv].

Dissemination and use

Use of skills anticipation in policy

The SZW and the OCW actively make use of and discuss between them the information generated by the skills anticipation exercises. Thus, the results usually play a large role in defining national policy, especially for educational policies.[xv] The funders of the POA use the labour market information and forecasts in dissemination to broader audiences, for example: through the SBB’s website and UWV’s publications ‘Kansrijke beroepen’ and ‘Regio in beeld’. ROA reports that, based on the information in the AIS, it provides targeted input to a range of research institutions for academic studies and analyses.[xvi] The information generated by the exercises is used by regional governments in formulating local policies.

UWV uses skills intelligence in executive summaries of findings, general reports presenting key findings, in detailed analyses comprising all research questions/ problems, specific analyses and evaluations focused on separate problems/target groups of clients and datasets for open access/use for externals. Internally, skills guidance informs UWV Handbooks/guidebooks/toolkits for staff and guidance / information offered to external stakeholders (e.g. VET providers, other educational institutions). UWV staff, including career guidance counsellors have access to skills intelligence findings through internal conferences/seminars and internal training/peer-learning sessions. Upskilling and reskilling programmes addressing future skills requirements are also informed by skills intelligence[xvii].

Target groups’ uses of skills anticipation outputs

Employers’ associations, trade unions, and other sectoral organisations review the information generated by the skills anticipation exercises and disseminate them amongst their members. In this way, employers and employees can react to foreseeable changes within labour markets and hopefully reduce the negative impacts of any future skills mismatch.

Students and those looking to further their careers also make use of the information. In particular, the forecasts produced by the POA are being used by publications that help students in their study or career choice. These study guides (MBO, HBO and WO Keuzegidsen and Studiekeuze123) are important sources of independent information about career prospects available to future students.[xviii]

Career counsellors can use the publicly available information to help guide individuals into various job roles or education programmes.[xix] Many educational institutions also use the results to monitor the effectiveness of their curriculum and amend programmes or offer new ones to reflect the projections. In this regard, the school leaver surveys conducted by the ROA are an important source of information.

Please cite this document as: Cedefop.(2022). Skills anticipation in the Netherlands. Skills intelligence: data insights. URL [accessed DATE]

Bibliography

Endnotes

[i]UWV. (2016)

[ii]CPB Economische beleidsanalyse n.d.b

[iii]For an overview of this project and a list of related publications see: http://roa.sbe.maastrichtuniversity.nl/?portfolio=arbeidsmarktmonitor-metalektro

[iv]CPB Economische beleidsanalyse. n.d.b

[v]Fouarge, D. (2015).

[vi]Bakens, J., Bijlsma, I., Cörvers, F., Dijksman, S., Fouarge, D., & Poulissen, D. (2018).

[vii]Aarts B., and Künn-Nelen A./ROA. (2019).

[viii]Bakens, J., Bijlsma, I., Dijksman, S., Fouarge, D., & Goedhart, R. (2021).

[ix]UWV. (2021a)

[x]TNO. (2019).

[xi]For examples of such reports see: Erken, H., van Loon, E., & Verbeek, W. (2015). and ter Weel, B. & Kok, S. (2013).

[xii]Onderwijs 2032.

[xiii]See HBO Monitor website.

[xiv]European Commission. (2022).

[xv]Fouarge, D. (2015).

[xvi]Ibid.

[xvii]European Commission. (2022).

[xviii]Fouarge, D. (2015).

[xix]Borghans, L., Golsteyn, B. H. H., & Stenberg A. (2013).

Previous Next