Netherlands policy goals must be scaled back to reflect chronic shortages in the construction workforce, according to the Economic Institute for Construction (EIB). Launching a report on industry employment forecasts, director Taco van Hoek warned that housing, grid expansion, and infrastructure maintenance cannot all be delivered at once. Targets like eliminating domestic natural gas heating by 2050 are unfeasible and need extending, he said.
The EIB estimates the sector will require 73,000 new recruits by 2030 to offset attrition and keep pace with demand. However, recruitment is being hit by stiff competition from an expanding defence sector, which is pulling scarce technicians away from civil construction.
Van Hoek called on Ministers to set more pragmatic deadlines: “Targets must be grounded in reality. Taking seven million homes off natural gas by 2050 is something we are not going to manage.” He suggested 2060 as a more realistic horizon, while warning that grid operators’ €200bn network upgrade plans will be “extraordinarily difficult to execute”.
To save labour and speed up delivery, he urged planners to strip back project scope—avoiding complex urban overhauls when replacing basic infrastructure like bridges—and to pivot from massive urban high-density housing schemes towards smaller suburban and rural developments.
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