VDAB.be Scraper

Pull job vacancies from VDAB.be — the Flemish public employment service — at scale, including titles, employers, contract type, salary, work regime, experience and education requirements, language demands, and VDAB's own knelpuntberoep (bottleneck-occupation) flag. Every Dutch-language text field arrives as clean, ready-to-use plain text. Built for Belgian recruiters, labour-market researchers, and relocation services who need structured VDAB vacancy data without copy-pasting listings one page at a time.

Why This Scraper?

• VDAB's knelpuntberoep flag on every row — a boolean isBottleneckJob marks each posting VDAB classifies as a bottleneck occupation, so you can instantly isolate the hardest-to-fill, highest-demand roles across Flanders.
• Up to 2,000 vacancies per keyword, merged and de-duplicated — run as many as 50 keywords in one go; overlapping results are collapsed by vacancy ID so the same job never appears twice.
• Four employment categories on one dropdown — filter by Regular jobs, Service vouchers (dienstencheques), Interim / temp work, or Social economy, mapped from plain English to VDAB's internal circuit codes for you.
• Full detail enrichment from each vacancy page — description, salary, educationRequirements, languageRequirements, experienceLevel, workRegime, and employmentLocation pulled straight from the vacancy detail, not just the search card.
• Language requirements with proficiency levels — languageRequirements lists each demanded language alongside its required competency (e.g. "Nederlands (Goed); Frans (Voldoende)"), parsed from VDAB's structured talenkennis data.
• Linked-duplicate counter — duplicateCount tells you how many other postings VDAB links to the same job, a strong signal for high-volume or multi-agency hiring.
• Full Flanders plus Brussels coverage — search any Flemish or Belgian city or municipality (Antwerpen, Gent, Brussel, Hasselt, Leuven, Brugge), resolved to the right province automatically.
• Apply-ready external links — sourceDetailUrl captures the employer's own application webadres where VDAB exposes it, plus the canonical public url for every vacancy.
• Raw-payload passthrough for analysts — flip on includeRawData to attach the untouched source records (rawListing, rawDetail) alongside the clean fields.

Use Cases

Recruitment & Sourcing

• Build candidate-facing job feeds filtered to a city and contract type
• Surface bottleneck occupations to prioritise hard-to-fill openings
• Track which employers are hiring most actively in your region
• Pull apply links and reference codes for fast outreach

Labour-Market Research

• Measure vacancy volume by keyword, location, and contract category over time
• Quantify knelpuntberoep prevalence across Flemish provinces
• Compare full-time vs. part-time and interim vs. permanent supply
• Map education and language requirements by occupation

Relocation & Mobility Services

• Prepare role shortlists for clients moving to Flanders or Brussels
• Match incoming talent to language-appropriate openings
• Benchmark expected qualifications before a candidate relocates
• Filter for roles open to specific experience levels

Competitive Salary Intelligence

• Capture published salary and benefits text per vacancy
• Compare offered packages within an occupation or region
• Track how compensation language shifts across employers
• Feed salary signals into pay-benchmarking dashboards

Data Enrichment & Integration

• Enrich an applicant-tracking system with fresh VDAB openings
• Power a job-aggregation site with structured Flemish vacancies
• Build alerts for new postings matching saved keywords
• Sync deduplicated vacancy data into a BI warehouse

Getting Started

Search by Keyword

The simplest run — one keyword, default settings:

{
    "searchQueries": ["software engineer"],
    "maxResults": 50
}

Keyword and Location, Newest First

{
    "searchQueries": ["verpleegkundige"],
    "location": "Antwerpen",
    "sort": "datum",
    "maxResults": 200
}

Filtered by Contract Type

{
    "searchQueries": ["magazijnier", "logistiek medewerker"],
    "location": "Gent",
    "contractType": "interim",
    "maxResults": 300,
    "includeJobDetails": true
}

Paste a VDAB Search URL

Dialed in a search on the VDAB website? Paste it directly — any filters baked into the URL are honoured as-is:

{
    "startUrls": [
        "https://www.vdab.be/vindeenjob/vacatures?trefwoord=verpleegkundige"
    ],
    "maxResults": 100
}

Full-Featured Example

{
    "searchQueries": ["data analist", "data engineer"],
    "location": "Brussel",
    "contractType": "regular",
    "sort": "datum",
    "maxResults": 500,
    "includeJobDetails": true,
    "includeRawData": false
}

Input Reference

Search

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
searchQueries	string[]	["software engineer"]	Job titles or keywords to search for, such as "software engineer", "verpleegkundige", or "magazijnier". Each keyword runs a separate search and results are merged and de-duplicated. Up to 50 keywords per run. Leave empty if you only want to use direct VDAB URLs.
startUrls	URL[]	[]	Paste full VDAB search-result URLs and/or individual vacancy-page URLs. Any filters baked into a search URL are scraped exactly as-is. To keep a location filter from a pasted search URL, also set the location field, since a pasted URL may carry only the place name and not VDAB's internal location code. Up to 100 URLs per run.

Filters & Limits

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
location	string	""	A city or municipality in Flanders or Belgium, such as "Antwerpen", "Gent", "Brussel", or "Hasselt". Leave empty to search all locations.
contractType	select	Any	Filter by employment category: Any, Regular jobs, Service vouchers (dienstencheques), Interim / temp work, or Social economy.
sort	select	Default	Order in which vacancies are collected: Default, or Newest first.
maxResults	integer	100	Maximum vacancies to collect per search keyword (1–2,000). Use 50 for a quick scan or higher for deep research. Small requests return about as many vacancies as you ask for; larger requests round up to the end of the last full page (about 50), so the final count can slightly overshoot.

Advanced

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
includeJobDetails	boolean	true	Fetch the full description, requirements, salary, and contact details from each vacancy's detail page. Turn off for faster, lighter scans — the description, requirements, salary, and contact fields will then be empty.
includeRawData	boolean	false	Attach the raw source payload to each record (as rawListing and rawDetail) for advanced analysis.

Output

Each vacancy becomes one flat record. Here's a representative result with full details enabled:

{
    "vacancyId": "62849173",
    "referenceId": "2026-118842",
    "title": "Verpleegkundige",
    "companyName": "AZ Sint-Lucas",
    "supplierName": "",
    "location": "Gent",
    "employmentLocation": "Groenebriel 1, 9000 Gent",
    "contractType": "Vast werk",
    "workRegime": ["Voltijds", "Dagwerk"],
    "experienceLevel": "Geen ervaring nodig",
    "educationRequirements": "Bachelor verpleegkunde",
    "languageRequirements": "Nederlands (Goed)",
    "salary": "Verloning volgens IFIC-barema, maaltijdcheques, hospitalisatieverzekering",
    "description": "Als verpleegkundige op onze afdeling sta je in voor de dagelijkse zorg...",
    "isBottleneckJob": true,
    "isClosed": false,
    "duplicateCount": 2,
    "firstPublishedAt": "2026-06-09T08:14:00Z",
    "lastModifiedAt": "2026-06-12T10:02:00Z",
    "contactEmail": "",
    "sourceDetailUrl": "https://www.azsintlucas.be/vacatures/verpleegkundige",
    "url": "https://www.vdab.be/vindeenjob/vacatures/62849173",
    "searchQuery": "verpleegkundige",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-06-17T14:30:00Z"
}

Core Fields

Field	Type	Description
vacancyId	string	VDAB vacancy identifier
title	string	Job title
companyName	string	Employer organisation name
supplierName	string	Supplier / intermediary organisation (for agency listings)
location	string	Vacancy location label
contractType	string	Contract / employment-circuit label
salary	string	Salary and benefits text, when available
isBottleneckJob	boolean	Knelpuntberoep (bottleneck occupation) flag
url	string	Public VDAB vacancy URL

Job Details

Populated when includeJobDetails is on.

Field	Type	Description
description	string	Full vacancy description as plain text
employmentLocation	string	Detailed work address, when available
workRegime	string[]	Work schedule (e.g. full-time, day work, shifts)
experienceLevel	string	Experience requirement label
educationRequirements	string	Educational credential expectations
languageRequirements	string	Required languages with proficiency levels
referenceId	string	Employer / reference code for the vacancy
sourceDetailUrl	string	Employer's external application URL, when available
contactEmail	string	Contact email, when published

Metadata

Field	Type	Description
isClosed	boolean	Whether the vacancy is closed
duplicateCount	integer	Count of linked duplicate vacancies
firstPublishedAt	string	Publication timestamp (ISO 8601)
lastModifiedAt	string	Last modification timestamp (ISO 8601)
searchQuery	string	The keyword or URL this record was found under
scrapedAt	string	When this record was collected (ISO 8601)
rawListing	object	Raw search payload (only when includeRawData is on)
rawDetail	object	Raw detail payload (only when includeRawData is on)

Tips for Best Results

• Filter on isBottleneckJob to find the hottest roles — bottleneck occupations (knelpuntberoepen) are VDAB's official hard-to-fill list, so a true value is a strong demand signal for sourcing and labour-market analysis alike.
• Sort by Newest first for fresh leads — set sort to Newest first when you want the most recently published vacancies at the top, ideal for daily monitoring runs.
• Toggle details for speed vs. depth — turn off includeJobDetails for a fast scan of titles, companies, and locations; turn it on for description, salary, education, and language requirements.
• Run several keywords together — list synonyms and Dutch/English variants (e.g. "magazijnier" and "logistiek medewerker") in one run; duplicates across keywords are removed automatically.
• Start small, then scale — set maxResults to 50 on your first run to confirm the data fits your needs, then raise it toward 2,000 for deep research.
• Use a specific municipality — entering a city like "Gent" or "Hasselt" narrows results to that area; leave location empty to cover all of Flanders and Brussels.
• Watch duplicateCount for multi-agency hiring — a high duplicate count often means several agencies are recruiting for the same role, useful when mapping which employers are scaling up.

Pricing

From $1.40 per 1,000 results — undercuts comparable VDAB scrapers while delivering full detail enrichment. Bronze, Silver, and Gold subscribers pay progressively less; the table below shows total cost at each discount tier.

Results	No discount	Bronze	Silver	Gold
100	$0.165	$0.16	$0.15	$0.14
1,000	$1.65	$1.60	$1.50	$1.40
10,000	$16.50	$16.00	$15.00	$14.00
100,000	$165.00	$160.00	$150.00	$140.00

A "result" is any vacancy row in the output dataset. No compute or time-based charges — you pay per result, plus a small fixed per-run start fee.

Integrations

Export data in JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or RSS. Connect to 1,500+ apps via:

• Zapier / Make / n8n — Workflow automation
• Google Sheets — Direct spreadsheet export
• Slack / Email — Notifications on new results
• Webhooks — Trigger custom APIs on run completion
• Apify API — Full programmatic access

Legal & Ethical Use

This actor is designed for legitimate recruitment, labour-market research, and relocation use. You are responsible for complying with applicable laws and VDAB's Terms of Service. Do not use extracted data for spam, harassment, or any unlawful purpose, and handle any personal data in line with GDPR and other applicable privacy regulations.