In short
- Many refugees are distantiated from the labour market, for example, due to the language barrier or unrecognised diplomas.
- Asito collaborates with the American TENT foundation to create workplaces for refugees.
Global Goal
CEOs and other leaders of fifteen leading employers in the Netherlands, including Asito, Shell, ING and Philips, have taken an important step to promote refugee integration by promising more assistance to refugees at home and abroad.
Hans van Leeuwen, HR director of Asito: “Asito has already employed refugees at multiple locations. At Asito, they learn the language, the Dutch culture and the cleaning profession. This way, we aim to increase their chances in the labour market. Some of the refugees keep working for Asito. Others move on to another job. We have agreed to help at least 50 refugees this way in the coming two years. In the new cleaning collective agreement, it has been agreed upon that in total the sector will employ 50 refugees. Asito, individually, creates an additional 50 jobs.”
The Tent Foundation is a global coalition that encourages companies to help refugees. They want to improve the lives and livelihood of the more than 25 million men, women and children who have been forced to leave their home countries.
Wiebe Draijer, CEO of Rabobank, and Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever, hosted the Dutch Summit on Refugees. The goal of the summit was to get several large Dutch employers to support this initiative. In addition to Asito, Rabobank, Accenture, Philips, Randstad, Manpower and ABN AMRO committed themselves to the Tent Foundation. Together they will create 50 jobs for refugees in the next two years.
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