Immigration and Labor Market Outcomes: An Analysis on the Effects of Immigration on the Dutch Labor Market

Immigration has become increasingly important in the Dutch political sphere, as well as around the world. An important topic that is discussed is the effects of immigration on the labor market of the host nation. This thesis studies the effects of incoming immigrants on the Dutch labor market between the years 1981 and 2013. Using the method of OLS regressions, I examine the effect of the influx of immigrants on the employment rate of natives as one group and separately for high-skilled and low-skilled laborers and the results show a positive but non-significant relationship between the dependent and independent variables. I then use OLS regressions again to study the effect of immigration on the change in wages per hour. Again, the results show a positive, yet highly insignificant relationship between immigration and wages.