VDAB.be Scraper: Belgium Flanders Jobs, Vacatures and Employers

Extract job listings from VDAB.be, Belgium's official Flemish public employment service (Vlaamse Dienst voor Arbeidsbemiddeling en Beroepsopleiding). Returns structured job data including title, company, Flemish province, employment type, salary, full description, external apply URL, company website and company social media links.

Covers Flanders and Brussels Capital Region — where the majority of Belgian tech, logistics, healthcare and engineering roles are posted. Wallonia uses a separate PES (Forem).

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What It Does

• Searches VDAB.be for any keyword in Dutch or English
• Extracts job cards: title, company, location, Flemish province, contract type, logo, posted date
• Fetches detail pages using Googlebot pre-rendering to unlock full job data (no browser required)
• Returns full description in plain text, HTML and Markdown from JSON-LD structured data
• Extracts external apply URL (employer's ATS or jobs portal link, e.g. Jobat, StepStone)
• Extracts company website from the VDAB detail page
• Optionally fetches company profile for social media links (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram) and company about text
• Extracts salary from JSON-LD structured data (min/max, currency, period)
• Maps Belgian employment types (voltijds, deeltijds, interim, stage, leercontract)
• Maps locations to Flemish provinces (Antwerpen, Oost-Vlaanderen, West-Vlaanderen, Vlaams-Brabant, Limburg) and Brussels
• Sorts results by newest first by default — ideal for scheduled daily scrapes

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Sample Output

{
  "_type": "job",
  "id": "74510331",
  "title": "Junior Software Engineer",
  "job_url": "https://www.vdab.be/vindeenjob/vacatures/74510331/junior-software-engineer",
  "source_url": "https://www.vdab.be/vindeenjob/vacatures/74510331/junior-software-engineer",
  "source_platform": "vdab.be",
  "company_name": "Noel Franklin",
  "company_website": "https://www.noelfranklin.com",
  "company_logo_url": "https://cdn.app-prd-cdn.aws.vdab-prd.be/vindeenjob/templates/bedrijven/4117/logo.jpg",
  "company_social_urls": [
    "https://www.linkedin.com/company/18802263/",
    "https://www.facebook.com/DeFranklins",
    "https://www.instagram.com/noelfranklin.agency/"
  ],
  "company_about": "Bij Noël Franklin draait alles om de juiste match. Wij voorzien echte begeleiding, inside info over bedrijven en toegang tot opportuniteiten die je nergens anders vindt...",
  "location": "Roeselare",
  "postal_code": "8800",
  "country": "BE",
  "region": "West-Vlaanderen",
  "posted_at_text": "1 sep. 2026",
  "posted_at_datetime": "2026-09-01T17:15:29Z",
  "employment_type": "permanent",
  "workplace_type": null,
  "salary_min": 2800.0,
  "salary_max": 4000.0,
  "salary_currency": "EUR",
  "salary_period": "month",
  "salary_text": "EUR 2800 - 4000 per month",
  "description": "Ben jij een junior software engineer met een sterke interesse in automotive en embedded systemen?...",
  "description_full": "Ben jij een junior software engineer met een sterke interesse in automotive en embedded systemen?...",
  "description_html": "<p>Ben jij een <strong>junior software engineer</strong>...</p>",
  "description_md": "Ben jij een **junior software engineer** met een sterke interesse...",
  "contact_emails": [],
  "contact_phones": [],
  "contact_urls": [],
  "apply_url": "https://jobs.noelfranklin.com/nl/?utm_source=vdab&utm_medium=bedrijfspagina",
  "search_query": "software engineer",
  "scraped_at": "2026-09-02T10:00:00Z"
}

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Pricing

Event	When triggered	Price
actor-start	Once per run	$0.001
job-serp-result	Per job returned (SERP only mode)	$0.003
job-detail-result	Per job returned (with detail fetch)	$0.005

Example costs:

• 100 jobs (SERP only): $0.001 + 100 x $0.003 = $0.31
• 100 jobs (with details): $0.001 + 100 x $0.005 = $0.51
• 1000 jobs (SERP only): $0.001 + 1000 x $0.003 = $3.00

New Apify users get $5 free monthly credit — enough for 1,600+ SERP-only job extractions.

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Input Fields

Field	Type	Default	Description
searchQueries	array	-	Keywords in Dutch or English (e.g. "programmeur", "verpleegkundige", "software engineer")
location	string	-	Flemish city or region filter (e.g. "Antwerpen", "Gent", "Brussel")
searchUrls	array	-	Paste VDAB.be search or direct vacancy URLs. Supports /vindeenjob/jobs/ SERP pages, /vindeenjob/vacatures/?trefwoord= search pages, and direct /vindeenjob/vacatures/{id}/{slug} vacancy URLs.
sortBy	string	"newest"	"newest" sorts by posting date descending (recommended for daily scraping); "relevance" uses VDAB's default ranking
maxResults	integer	100	Total result cap across all queries
maxResultsPerQuery	integer	100	Cap per keyword or URL
includeJobDetails	boolean	true	Fetch detail pages for full description, salary and apply URL
includeCompanyDetails	boolean	false	Also fetch company profile for social links and about text
maxConcurrency	integer	5	Concurrent requests (1-20)

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Output Fields

Field	Description
_type	Always "job"
id	VDAB vacancy ID
title	Job title
job_url	Canonical vacancy URL on vdab.be
source_url	Same as job_url
source_platform	Always "vdab.be"
company_name	Employer name
company_logo_url	Employer logo from VDAB CDN
company_website	Employer website URL (from detail page when includeJobDetails=true)
company_social_urls	Array of social media URLs: linkedin, twitter, facebook, instagram, youtube in that order (when includeCompanyDetails=true)
company_about	Company about/description text from VDAB company profile (when includeCompanyDetails=true)
location	City or municipality
postal_code	Belgian postal code (from JSON-LD structured data)
country	Always "BE"
region	Flemish province: Antwerpen / Oost-Vlaanderen / West-Vlaanderen / Vlaams-Brabant / Limburg / Brussel
posted_at_text	Dutch date format: "13 jul. 2026"
posted_at_datetime	ISO 8601 UTC datetime (from JSON-LD datePosted when includeJobDetails=true, date-only otherwise)
employment_type	permanent / part-time / temporary / internship / apprenticeship / flexi / freelance
workplace_type	on-site / hybrid / remote (when available in description)
salary_min	Minimum salary in EUR (from JSON-LD baseSalary when listed)
salary_max	Maximum salary in EUR
salary_currency	Always "EUR" when salary is present
salary_period	month / year / hour / week / day
salary_text	Salary summary string
description	Job description snippet (up to 500 characters)
description_full	Full plain-text description with line breaks preserved
description_html	HTML rendering of the full description
description_md	Markdown source of the description (from VDAB's CMS)
contact_emails	Email addresses found in description
contact_phones	Belgian phone numbers found in description
contact_urls	External URLs found in description
apply_url	External apply URL from employer's ATS or jobs portal (from JSON-LD hiringOrganization.sameAs). Falls back to VDAB job URL when not available.
search_query	Query that returned this result
scraped_at	ISO 8601 UTC scrape timestamp

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How It Works

VDAB.be uses Angular Universal (server-side rendering for SEO). The scraper uses a two-stage fetch:

1. SERP — Verbolia static HTML pages at /vindeenjob/jobs/{keyword-slug} serve up to 28 job cards per page as plain HTML (no JS required). These contain: title, company name, location, contract type, logo URL, posted date, description snippet.

2. Detail — Vacancy detail pages at /vindeenjob/vacatures/{id}/{slug} are fetched using a Googlebot User-Agent. VDAB's Angular Universal pre-renders full content for this UA (~79KB vs 46KB SPA shell), exposing JSON-LD JobPosting data with: full description in Markdown, salary (min/max/currency/period), ISO datePosted, postal code, company info and apply URL.

3. Company (optional) — Company profile pages at /vindeenjob/bedrijven/{id} are also pre-rendered for Googlebot, exposing: company about text, social media links (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram).

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Use with AI Agents (MCP)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@apify/mcp-server"],
      "env": { "APIFY_TOKEN": "your_token" }
    }
  }
}

Then ask your AI: "Search VDAB for software engineer jobs in Antwerpen and return the results as JSON."

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Why This Scraper

• Full descriptions: Extracts complete job descriptions via Angular Universal pre-rendering — no browser, no Playwright
• External apply URLs: Returns the real employer ATS link, not just the VDAB page
• Company enrichment: Social media profiles and about text from VDAB company pages
• Structured salary data: Parsed from JSON-LD structured data (min/max/period)
• Public sector data: VDAB is the official Flemish public employment service — all listings are freely accessible
• HTTP-only Go: No browser, no Playwright, no Puppeteer. Fast, cheap, reliable
• Flemish market coverage: VDAB is the primary job board for Flemish speakers in Belgium
• Apprenticeship coverage: VDAB includes dual-training jobs (leercontract) not found on commercial boards
• Province mapping: Automatically maps Belgian municipalities to Flemish province
• Incremental-ready: Default sort-by-newest makes daily scheduled runs trivial

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Common Use Cases

• Scheduled daily scraping: Run on a schedule with sortBy: "newest" and a small maxResults cap (e.g. 50-100) to capture only new listings each day. Deduplicate downstream by id or job_url.
• Market research: Track job postings in specific Flemish provinces or sectors
• Salary benchmarking: Identify salary ranges for Belgian roles (structured min/max data from JSON-LD)
• Talent pipeline: Monitor which companies are hiring in Flanders
• Lead generation: Combine company_website and company_social_urls for B2B outreach
• Public sector jobs: VDAB lists Belgian government, education and healthcare vacancies
• Apprenticeship tracking: Monitor dual-training (leercontract) opportunities by sector

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Notes and Limits

• Coverage: Flanders and Brussels Capital Region only. Wallonia (French-speaking) uses Forem.
• Language: Most listings are in Dutch (nl-BE). Some Brussels listings may be in French or English.
• Results per query: Up to 28 results per keyword search via the static SERP pages.
• apply_url: Points to the employer's ATS homepage (e.g. jobs.noelfranklin.com/nl/) with VDAB tracking UTMs. The deep-link to the specific vacancy on the external ATS is only available inside the Angular SPA.
• company_social_urls: Requires includeCompanyDetails: true. Fetches one additional page per job.
• company_open_jobs_count: Not available (VDAB's count API requires authentication).
• Authentication: VDAB's session-gated REST API is not used — all data comes from public pages.
• Update frequency: VDAB listings refresh daily. Run daily for fresh data.
• Salary data: Belgian salaries are often listed as gross monthly ("brut per maand"). "In overleg" means negotiable.
• Employment types: voltijds (full-time), deeltijds (part-time), interim (temp agency), stage (internship), leercontract (apprenticeship).

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Related Actors

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• Indeed Scraper - Global jobs including Belgium
• CVLibrary Scraper - UK job board
• IrishJobs.ie Scraper - Ireland jobs
• Prospects UK Scraper - UK graduate jobs

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Support

Issues or questions? Open a ticket on the Issues tab or email contact@nanoscrape.com.