Even founders complain about the Dutch climate

It's quite normal in the Netherlands to complain about the country's climate, the never-ending rain in the winter, and the lack of sunshine. Both expats and locals gladly engage in these conversations regularly — but very few find the weather to be a big enough issue to move away. After all, there are a lot of things to love over here.

The country's business climate issues, however, appear to be more problematic. Last month, the local newspaper De Telegraaf reported that more than one in five entrepreneurs (not just in tech but across all industries) were considering moving their business abroad. The respondents cited the unstable political situation, overregulation, and difficulties with accessing talent among the main issues.

The recently launched report dubbed?State of Dutch Tech 2024 ?mentions some of these issues as well, particularly the shortage of talent. Along with increasing capital available for startups and stimulating regional specialisation, the document recommends to "actively pursue ways to solve the increasing shortage of talent, by educating more local talent (promoting STEM studies and digital educators), bringing in skilled foreign talent (retaining the 30% expat ruling) and making the tech sector more inclusive."

And it's not just the startups and SMEs that aren't happy with the Dutch business environment. This week, the news broke that the country's tech giant ASML has considered migrating away, which led to the government reportedly launching a secret task force to make sure it doesn't happen.

It's certainly not too late to create and adjust regulations to improve the business climate forecast in the Netherlands, and we hope the alleged 'Operation Beethoven' proves to be successful — not just for the sake of ASML, but for all the smaller companies trying to survive the current market and funding conditions.

However, it's worth remembering that startups tend to have short runways. The sooner things start brightening for them, the fewer businesses we'll see folding or going abroad.

Our senior reporter Thomas Macaulay took a look at the ASML situation to figure out where its issues lie — learn more in his piece below ??

???♀??Dutch government launched secret task force to keep ASML in Netherlands

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Keep on shining, people. Until next time!