A third of construction workers from outside Belgium

One in three workers in the Belgian construction sector comes from a different European country. The workers are often either self-employed or on secondment, meaning they are on temporary assignment in Belgium via a foreign company or subsidiary in another EU Member State.

Big contractors in Belgium are especially reliant on this form of 'cheaper' European staff, according to a study by the Research Institute for Labor and Society Research Group at the University of Leuven for the period 2011 to 2015. The study shows that the number of Belgians to fill vacancies in the construction sector during this period fell by 7%.

In total, there are about 210,000 workers on secondment in Belgium, especially in construction and transport, according to the study. "The strong growth in the construction sector can be explained by the fact that the sector has discovered the system of secondment in recent years," says Leuven researcher Jozef Pacolet.

Pacolet's findings reveal that Belgian construction workers are increasingly displaced by foreign colleagues, especially in masonry and plastering. The majority of the seconded workers are from Poland.