The labour market is becoming tighter and tighter. The number of job vacancies is increasing, unemployment is falling, the population is ageing and there is a decline in the number of young people. NS is seeing the effects of this in its recruitment in a number of regions and in crucial professional areas such as technology, IT, service and retail. It is important to remain an attractive employer in the Netherlands We respond to this challenge by showing NS as an employer from different perspectives. In our labour market campaigns we emphasize the wide range of opportunities that employees have at NS to improve mobility in the Netherlands. We also use a variety of recruitment channels tailored we suit the target groups and involve our own staff to help find new colleagues.
NS recruits between 3,500 and 5,000 new members of staff every year, more than half of whom work in the station retail outlets. In 2018, we filled 3,555 vacancies for people with vocational qualifications and 746 vacancies for graduates of applied and academic universities (2017: 3,779 and 1,011 respectively). 140 chief guards and 60 Safety & Service staff were hired. 19 trainees started with us. In our recruitment, we paid more attention in 2018 to the positioning of NS as an attractive employer where employees get a lot of freedom and have a socially relevant impact on the Netherlands. We show the challenges NS is working on and how employees can contribute.
The recruitment is done online and focuses on specific groups through the new campaign ‘Tomorrow’s journey starts with you’. There is a new website, werkenbijns.nl, and we work with a new recruitment system that makes it easier for candidates to find information and respond. For each target group we examined what aspects of work are most important to them, and we give specific attention to that in the campaign.
The hiring desk filled 369 temporary positions and we have concluded new contracts with employment agencies. All new employees were screened and completed online modules to familiarise themselves with NS.