Tens of thousands of teachers, qualified nurses, and classroom assistants are not working in the professions for which they are trained, an investigation by the education and labour market research centre ROA has shown.

The “hidden reserve” includes some 62,000 teachers, about four times the number of secondary school teachers currently needed. The shortage stood at 13,600 full-time jobs at the end of 2023.

Some 28,000 qualified nurses are working outside the care sector, about twice as many as are needed. The number of care and classroom assistants also exceeds the shortage in those professions.

“And this is a conservative estimate,” ROA head researcher Mellline Somers told Trouw. “Because of a data set limit we could only count the people who qualified after 2000. The real number will be higher,” she said.

Somers said convincing people to use their training could potentially make a big dent in the shortages in crucial sectors such as care and education. “It’s more efficient than attracting new students which politicians often focus on as a solution. But these people are already qualified,” she said.

Earlier research has shown, however, that many teachers and nurses who have left the profession are much happier away from the classroom or hospital bed than the people who remained. They reported few burn-out problems, a better work-life balance and greater control over working hours.

Much can also be done to lower the high number of young teachers leaving the profession, Kirsten Cuppen of teachers support organisation Blij(f) in het Onderwijs said.

“Every school should have a proper coaching programme for teachers who are just starting out, she said.

“At the moment young teachers are simply thrown in at the deep end,” Cuppen said. “At one of our meetings, I spoke to a teacher who had been a police officer before retraining. Even with her experience, she had never felt so insecure, she said. If teachers were coached better we could prevent many of them from leaving.”

Somers said that if employers want to make the job attractive again to nurses they would have to give them more control over their working hours, particularly for those who combine the job with child care or are caring for a relative.