Holland welcomes skilled migrants

he Netherlands must open its arms to highly-educated migrants and introduce a point system to make it much easier for them to live and work here, according to the government's top advisory body SER, the Volkskrant reports on Friday. 'Scarce talent is a benefit to the economy,' SER chairman Alexander Rinnooy Kan told the paper. 'In the battle for brains, the Netherlands must turn itself into a hospitable, cosmopolitan environment.' The Dutch has a reputation for having a tough immigration policy and this is damaging the country's international position when it comes to developing a high-value knowledge-based economy, SER said. 'If we want to compete [with the US and UK] we will have to drastically alter our admission procedures. It should be a question of 'yes subject to' rather than 'no unless',' Rinnooy Kan told the Volkskrant. The new rules would apply to a few thousand people a year, the Volkskrant said. SER, which is made up of trade unions, employers and crown appointees, also said that the current restrictive immigration policy for non-EU nationals should continue to apply to low-skilled workers. The organisation also advised the social affairs, justice and economic affairs ministries to create a single office where both employers and migrants can deal with the paperwork in one go, the Volkskrant reported. The immigration service, which has been subject to a barrage of complaints over service, should rule on a work permit within two weeks, the SER said.