Despite many major tech companies around the world slashing their workforces numbers in recent months, The Dutch tech start-up industry remains strong.
There are 15 tech start-ups operating in Groningen according to Startupblink.com. Though, ‘Founded in Groningen’, an organisation that supports start-ups in the city, claims that it has over 300 start-ups and partners in its network.
PayPal today become, only the latest in a litany of tech companies to announce mandatory redundancies – 2000 equaling 7% of their worldwide workforce.
Start-Up Ecosystem
Just Eat, Booking.com, and Catawiki are only a few start-ups that have done well globally over the years – which began as Dutch startups and then achieved success on the world wide scale
The Start-up environment here in the Netherlands is ranked 5th in the western Europe and 11th globally generating around 2.9BN in investments in May 2022, according to Startupblink.com.
The number of start-ups in Groningen has risen by 12% since 2018 and that increase materialises in 135K+ jobs with an annual growth of 7.6%. This represents an increase of 64.5K net new jobs since 2018, according to a report by Dealroom.co, a global provider of data on intelligence on start-ups.
The Dutch Chamber of Commerce (KnK), did not give figures for the number of enquiries they receive from Groningers who want to start businesses when contacted.
A representative of the KnK told the Groningen Observer that they received hundreds of enquiries about how to start a business each day.
“Nowadays many people start up a company because they cannot get a job, but they can work for themselves,” a staff member said.
The growth of start-ups in the region is driven in large part by the heavy influx of students that come to the region to study at the university of Groningen (RUG) and the Hanze university of applied sciences.
“All our investors are specific to the region and our angel investment round came from RUG Ventures and NOM (Investment and Development in the North Netherlands),”said Richard Rushby, a former student at Groningen university and founder of SG Papertronics, when he spoke to Groningen.nl last year.
“I’ve found the Eco-systems to be so rich that I’ve looked for ways that I can help give back to the Groningen entrepreneurial community and have recently taken a role as a Board member for Founded in Groningen,” he added.
Tech layoffs
The health of the regional sector stands in contrast to the image cast by the large layoffs in the tech world from the Silicon Valley giants like Meta, Alphabet, and Twitter – resulting in over 30,000 tech workers losing their jobs.
Paypal’s decision today was due to “the challenging macroeconomic environment,” according to the BBC. Though other big tech companies have cited reduced demand for online products since the end of the pandemic for their redundancies.
It is still unclear whether this move will affect Dutch workers – as earlier this week when 1,100 Dutch workers at the tech company Philips lost their jobs when the company announced redundancies.
