What Happens If Your Job Placement in the Netherlands Falls Through?
If you're on a highly skilled migrant visa, your residence permit is tied to your employer. If that placement ends, so does your legal reason to stay, unless someone helps you find a new one fast. That's exactly what happened to Marcé Olivier, and it's why we want to share his story.
What is a highly skilled migrant visa, and why does it matter here?
The highly skilled migrant visa (kennismigrant visa) is the route most South African IT and engineering professionals use to work legally in the Netherlands. It lets a Dutch company sponsor a qualified foreign worker, provided they meet a minimum salary threshold.
The catch: the permit is linked directly to the sponsoring employer. Lose the job, and technically, you lose your basis to stay, unless you secure a new sponsoring employer within the allowed window.
What happened when Marcé's first placement ended?
Marcé moved to the Netherlands with his wife and three kids in April 2025. A year in, they'd found their rhythm: slower pace, real work-life balance, kids settling into a calmer routine than they'd had in South Africa.
Then, through no fault of his own, his first placement came to an end.
"Something like that happening out of the blue puts a lot of pressure on you," Marcé says. "We were not ready to go back just yet."
His biggest fear wasn't the paperwork. It was uprooting his kids a second time in under a year, after they'd already said goodbye to South Africa once.
How did Ir Olav's Globetrotters respond?
"They were shocked, just like I was," Marcé says. "But after that, they jumped in. It was just like, 'You know what, we've got this; we've got you.'"
With real urgency behind it, our team got to work finding Marcé a new client. Same steps as the first placement (interview rounds, a technical test, the client meeting him directly) but the stakes were higher.
Where is Marcé working now?
Marcé is now a DevOps Engineer at CIBG, part of the Dutch Ministry of Health. He works across open source and Microsoft products, involved in decisions from planning through to implementation.
"It doesn't feel like a government institution," he says. "There's a fluidity to it where everything is a combined choice. For a DevOps engineer, that's everything."
He says he's more excited to get to work than he's ever been!
What does Marcé's story teach South Africans considering the move?
In his own words: "Surprises can still happen no matter how hard you plan. As long as you've got the right support system, that makes a huge difference."
His advice to anyone worried about what happens if things don't go to plan after relocating: make sure you've got a proper team behind you, one that stays in your corner even after the placement that brought you here.
Watch the full interview
Marcé's full interview covers more than we can fit here, from what settling into Dutch life actually looked like in year one, to what he'd tell his own kids about the move.
FAQ
Can I lose my visa if I lose my job in the Netherlands? There's a window to find a new sponsoring employer (it's usually 3 months but can be extended to six months if you've held a Dutch residence permit for at least two years and their employment ended on or after May 22, 2026), which is exactly the support we step in to provide.
Does Ir Olav's Globetrotters help if a placement ends unexpectedly? Yes. If a placement ends our team can work to place you with a new client so your visa and residence status stay intact, as we did for Marcé.
Thinking about making the move yourself? Have a look at our current openings for South African IT and engineering professionals.
Engineer Your Dutch Life.
