Traditional employers such as national government, the police and ING are the most popular places to work among the Netherlands’ youngsters, according to a survey of 16,000 under-30s by researchers at Rotterdam-based Intelligence Group.

Fast-growing tech companies such as Adyen, Mollie, Booking and ‘hip’ start-ups and scale-ups barely merit a mention, Intelligence Group’s Geert-Jan Waasdorp told the Financieele Dagblad. Google and chip machinery maker ASML are the only tech firms in the top 10.

Youngsters also have few scruples about working for more polluting companies such as Shell and KLM, and the tax office, beset by a string of scandals, is in 7^th place on the list of most popular employers.

‘Lots gets written about what Generation Z want from an employer… from purpose to the attractiveness of scale-ups, but it does not seem to be true when you look at the figures,’ Waasdorp said.

‘These employers don’t invest in their brand as a company to work at, and more established firms are doing it better,’ he said. ‘So companies which are suffering from the shortage of staff have some work to do.’