In construction, the power grid and healthcare, a cooling economy does not cool demand for people. Their hiring follows long programmes: housing, the energy transition and an ageing population. Our conclusion: employers in these sectors should stop waiting for a calmer market and plan for most new staff to come from other occupations.
Construction needs people from outside
The construction economics institute EIB projects a large need for new full-time workers between 2026 and 2029 to deliver the planned production. Education can supply most of it. The rest has to come from lateral entry: people who do something else today and were not trained for construction. That part is not a problem a job advert solves.
The grid: demand sits with contractors
Netbeheer Nederland, the association of grid operators, derives a large technician demand to 2029 from the investment plans of the regional operators and the national transmission operator. The striking part is where that demand sits. The great majority is needed at contractors that work for the operators, not at the operators themselves. Installers, site supervisors and engineers make up the rest. An employer who looks only at the grid operators misses most of this market.
Healthcare: the steepest projection
Healthcare projections vary the most, and they are the largest. On unchanged policy, the shortfall projected by ABF Research and the health ministry grows sharply towards 2032. The cause is demographic. The ageing that drives demand for care also takes people out of the labour force.
Why these sectors
These sectors stand out in Eurostat vacancy data. Between mid-2022 and mid-2025 the national vacancy rate fell clearly, and in information and communication it dropped steeply. In construction and healthcare it barely moved. Demand driven by housing targets, grid expansion and ageing does not follow the economy.
Together these sectors want a very large number of people within a few years, while the Dutch labour force barely grows. That demand cannot come from growth. It has to come from reallocation: people who work somewhere else today. That turns a demographic problem into a recruitment question.
What this does not show
The construction and grid figures are projections built on plans. If housing targets slip or grid investments are delayed, demand falls with them. The healthcare projection assumes unchanged policy, and policy rarely stays unchanged. Vacancy rates are measured per sector and hide differences between roles. Private security, another sector with persistent shortages, is missing because its figures could not be verified. If the vacancy rate in these sectors starts to fall with the rest of the economy, our reading that their demand ignores the cycle is wrong.
What you can do
- Use your own sector's figures in planning and in conversations with management. The national story of a cooling market does not describe your market.
- Treat lateral entry as the main route, not a fallback. Recruit from adjacent trades and build a short, practical training path around the gap.
- If you supply the grid, recruit as a contractor would. That is where most of the technician demand sits.
- Do not postpone hiring in the hope of an easier market. In these sectors that market is not coming. More on the engineering field.