Tent Nederland launches with more than 40 inaugural companies committed to accelerating refugees’ labor market access

• Leading businesses – including some of the country’s largest employers such as IKEA, Marriott International, Philips, and Vebego – have come together to advance their efforts to hire refugees and asylum seekers across all skill levels
• Tent Nederland, formally initiated today and providing all member companies free-of-charge services to accelerate their refugee hiring strategies, is the newest national coalition of international network the Tent Partnership for Refugees

Amsterdam, April 7, 2025 – The Tent Partnership for Refugees (Tent) – an international network of companies committed to the labor market integration of refugees – is announcing the launch of Tent Nederland, a coalition of more than 40 major companies stepping up across the country to hire refugees and asylum seekers at scale. Tent Nederland will officially launch today at a high-profile event in Amsterdam and, in late 2025, expand its services to support member companies in Belgium. 

Over 290,000 refugees live in the Netherlands, which has welcomed over 118,000 Ukrainian refugees alongside an estimated 40,000 asylum seekers and 132,000+ statushouders from countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Eritrea. Statushouders and asylum seekers have the right to work but have extremely low labor participation rates – for statushouders roughly 12%, two years after being granted asylum, increasing to only 46% after six years. This percentage is higher for Ukrainians in the country, as they have been given the immediate right to work upon arrival. Roughly 55% of Ukrainians are working in the Netherlands, two years after arriving.

Comparatively, however, the general net labor participation rate in the Netherlands is 73% – meaning that for statushouders, asylum seekers, and Ukrainians alike, much more must be done to meet this moment and support them into jobs. 

With more than 400,000 positions currently vacant across industries ranging from hospitality to healthcare, the 40+ inaugural companies of Tent Nederland have come together to accelerate their efforts to tackle the structural barriers refugees and asylum seekers commonly face when trying to access the labor market – such as limited local language proficiency, lack of professional and social networks, gaps in their CVs, and childcare responsibilities – and connect them to jobs across all skill levels. 

Tent Nederland will offer member companies a host of services free of charge including: resources and trainings for human resource teams; best practices and ideas distilled from Tent’s network of hundreds of major companies across a dozen countries who are hiring and integrating refugees into their workforces, as well as tailored programs and insights to the Dutch market context; regular convenings and workshops with other Tent Nederland member companies for peer-to-peer learning; and introductions to best-in-class partners across the Netherlands that can source refugee talent.

“There are now more open positions than unemployed people in the Netherlands,” said Hélène van Melle, Director of Tent Nederland. “As this will only continue to intensify, hiring refugees should be recognized as a win-win-win: a long-term solution to the acute labor shortages, an opportunity for refugees to rebuild their lives and a way for them to contribute to society. In uncertain and changing times for the world and for our country, Tent Nederland and our network of major companies recognize there is much more to be done and commit to driving refugee and asylum seeker hiring at scale.”

As well as helping fill labor gaps, Tent’s own studies have shown that there are many tangible business benefits to hiring refugees: retention rates are higher among refugee employees, general employee satisfaction and engagement increases, and consumers are more likely to buy from a brand that employs refugees.

“Since joining the Tent Partnership for Refugees, we have successfully hired refugees at all skills levels in the Netherlands and elsewhere,” said Monique Bijl, Global Workforce Strategy & Talent Acquisition Business Partner at Philips. “We look forward to collaborating as a coalition so that we can effectively learn from each other and give refugees a chance to thrive.”

“We have seen first hand at McDonald’s what a difference inclusive hiring can make to give everyone – including refugee job seekers – a fair opportunity to access a job and thrive professionally,“ said Ineke Jeuster, Chief People Officer at McDonald’s Netherlands. “We are excited to joinTent Nederland and to thus deepen our commitment to supporting refugees secure employment: in doing so we are strengthening our restaurants and franchisees with a motivated talent pool that contributes so much to our teams and our communities.”

“We know from experience that refugee employees are an incredibly diverse, motivated, and resilient talent pool and that hiring them isn’t just doing good, but good for our business,” said Sven Bloem, Manager Impact and Participation, Vebego. “As a founding member, we are committed to working with Tent Nederland and peer member companies to accelerate our efforts to include refugees into our workforce.”

The over 40 companies joining Tent Nederland span a range of sectors and include: 180 Amsterdam, ABN AMRO, Adecco Group, AkzoNobel, Arcadis, Asito, BCD Travel, Ben & Jerry’s, Collins Foods Limited, Compass Group Nederland, Cordaan, DHL, DLA Piper, EWL, EY Ernst & Young, Facilicom, IKEA, Indeed Inc, ISS, Johnson Controls, Kraft Heinz, LinkedIn, ManpowerGroup, Marriott International, Mastercard, McDonald’s, OTTO Work Force, Pagegroup, PepsiCo, Philips, Randstad, Sodexo, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Tempo Team, Tennet, Timing, TIP Group, Transdev PLC, Unilever, Uniqlo, Vebego, Vermaat Groep

The launch of Tent Nederland is an important milestone in the work that the Tent Partnership for Refugees has been doing with businesses across the Netherlands since 2018, and follows the Dutch Business Summits in 2019 and 2022 – which has already led to thousands of refugees getting connected to jobs. 

About Tent Nederland

With the Netherlands welcoming significant numbers of refugees, businesses have a critical role to play in helping them integrate economically in their new communities. Tent  Nederland is a network of more than 40 major companies that are committed to hiring refugees across the country and helping them become job-ready. Tent Nederland is the national coalition of the Tent Partnership for Refugees, which was founded in 2016 by Hamdi Ulukaya, the CEO and founder of Chobani – a multibillion dollar food company in the U.S. – to mobilize the world’s largest employers to help refugees access local labor markets. In addition to the Netherlands, Tent operates in ten other countries across the Americas and Europe. Find out more at www.tent.org/nederland.