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The Dutch market right now
Sources: CBS & AWVN, Q2 2026
- 375k
- Open vacancies
- 95
- Vacancies per 100 unemployed
- 4.3%
- Cao wage growth
- 3.2%
- New wage agreements
End of Q2 2026, 3,000 fewer than Q1 (CBS)
Cooling, still historically tight (CBS)
Q2 2026, down from 6.8% peak in Q3 2024 (CBS)
Average raise agreed in July 2026 (AWVN)
Welcome to the new Frontrunners Group
Not just a new website — a clearer idea of what Frontrunners should become. Four specialist markets, one shared intelligence layer.
Jasper Floor · 2026-09-02
Specialists beat generalists — and the gap is widening
Hiring is a market problem before it is a process problem. Whoever knows the market best wins the search.
2026-08-20 · 5 min read
AI is repricing technical sales
The clearest shift our sales desks see: buyers expect the seller to demo, script and integrate — not just present.
2026-08-12 · 4 min read
Finance teams are hiring differently
Controllers who own automation and tooling are valued above pure reporting profiles.
2026-07-30 · 4 min read
Marketing hiring is going full-funnel
Single-channel marketing hires are being replaced by profiles accountable for the whole funnel.
2026-07-18 · 3 min read
What candidates now expect from scale-ups
Slow processes lose good people. Clarity, not perks, is the differentiator.
2026-07-04 · 3 min read
The Dutch labour market in numbers: Q2 2026
Vacancies fell again in Q2 2026, yet with 95 vacancies per 100 unemployed hiring in the Netherlands is still close to balance.
2026-08-28 · 5 min read
Tightness by province: hiring is a regional problem
Overijssel, Utrecht and Drenthe are the tightest hiring regions in the Netherlands; Groningen, South Holland and Flevoland the loosest.
2026-08-25 · 4 min read
Dutch wage growth is cooling — and still beating inflation
Cao wages grew 4.3% in Q2 2026 and new agreements average 3.2% — the era of 6%+ raises is over, but real wages are still rising.
2026-08-22 · 5 min read
Two-thirds of Dutch employers are short-staffed. Most now automate first.
Nearly two-thirds of Dutch companies report a staff shortage, and automation has overtaken 'becoming a more attractive employer' as the main response.
2026-08-18 · 4 min read
AI adoption in Dutch companies: from experiment to text
AI use among Dutch companies jumped nearly 9 percentage points in a year, driven almost entirely by text-based applications.
2026-08-14 · 4 min read
The Dutch ICT sector keeps outgrowing the economy
Tech is still the fastest-compounding part of the Dutch economy — and the talent pool has grown with it to 622,000 ICT professionals.
2026-08-08 · 4 min read