THE HAGUE, 21/01/06 - Almost 20 percent of the companies in the Netherlands used illegal labour in 2004. Together, they employed between 65,000 and 90,000 foreign workers without the required permit, research instigated by Social Affairs State Secretary Henk van Hoof revealed on Friday.

Researchers from Regioplan bureau asked more than 7,000 companies anonymously whether they had illegal personnel. They concluded from this that between 73,000 and 106,000 companies employed one or more illegal workers in 2004. This is almost 19 percent of the total number of companies.

The number of illegal employees of foreign origin was estimated at 65,000 to 90,000. About 40 percent of these came from Poland and the other Eastern European countries that joined the EU on 1 May 2004. The work done by the illegal employees was about 1 percent of the work carried out legally in the Netherlands.

The results of the inquiry are not 100 percent reliable, Van Hoof admitted, because companies probably did not admit all their faults, in spite of the anonymity of the survey. Moreover, foreigners who work illegally for private individuals were not included in the estimates.

Nevertheless, Van Hoof observed that the figures were more favourable than for previous inquiries, which estimated the number of illegal foreign workers in 2004 at between 100,000 and 180,000. The state secretary instigated the latest survey because he needed a reference point for assessing the effect of his policy in the future.

Since 2005, the fines companies receive for illegal labour have risen sharply to 8,000 euros per illegal worker discovered. The number of inspections also doubled, to 8,000 per year.