The Dutch high tech industry has several success stories, such as ASML and Brainport Eindhoven. But how is employment actually doing in Dutch high tech industry?
A.T. Kearney reported in February 2016 that only eight of the global top 100 high-tech companies originating have their headquarters in Europe. Based on this, the research firm concluded that the European high-tech industry is falling further and further behind the rest of the world. Following these figures, Dutch company Joblift examined employment in the Dutch high-tech industry. Joblift is a meta job search engine that allows users to search a good number of job sites, job boards, newspapers and career sites.
Growth continues to lag behind
Figures from Joblift show that between September 2016 and August 2017, a total of 29,732 vacancies were published online by Dutch high-tech companies. This is over 3,000 or 11% more than in the same period a year earlier, when the total number of vacancies remained at 26,698. The number of vacancies from high-tech companies is growing by an average of 2.1% per month. Despite these positive figures, growth lags behind the Dutch labour market as a whole, which grew by 2.6%.
North Brabant has long been seen as the 'high tech hub' of the Netherlands. This reputation of the province is confirmed by Joblift's figures. 37% of all vacancies in the high-tech industry were issued by companies from North Brabant in the past year, amounting to roughly 11,000 vacancies. A large number of these - a total of 4,348 - were from companies based in the Eindhoven region.
Other provinces are catching up
Other provinces are catching up, by the way. For instance, the job vacancy rate for position in the high-tech industry in Overijssel grew by 4.7%, which is more than twice the growth rate in North Brabant (1.9%). However, the number two and three - Noord-Holland and Zuid-Holland respectively - are still quite a distance away from Noord-Brabant. 15% of vacancies in the sector originated in North Holland, while 13% were posted by companies in South Holland.
If we look at employers in the Dutch high tech industry with who issued the most vacancies, ASML leads by far. ASML posted a total of 865 vacancies online. VDL Groep is in second position with 311 vacancies, followed by Philips with 275 vacancies.
Fewer R&D vacancies
What is also striking about the figures is that while the total number of vacancies rose by 11%, the number of vacancies in Research & Development (R&D) actually fell by 7%. A total of 1,427 vacancies for R&D positions were issued between September 2016 and August 2017, compared to 1,537 in the same period a year earlier.
Author: Wouter Hoeffnagel
Source: Joblift
Source: A.T. Kearney
