VDAB Scraper

Scrape job listings from vdab.be — the official Flemish public employment service with 50,000+ active vacancies across Belgium. Filter by keyword, location, province, contract type, and work regime. No API key required. Access to all public and private sector vacancies in one place.

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Why this scraper?

🏛️ Official Belgian employment source

VDAB is the Flemish government's official employment service — the authoritative source for job market data in Flanders, Brussels, and beyond. Every vacancy listed on vdab.be is verified and actively managed, unlike aggregators that scrape third-party sites.

🔄 Repost detection — unique in the market

Companies frequently republish the same vacancy to push it back to the top. This scraper detects reposts automatically and flags them — so you only pay for genuinely new listings.

Each result includes:

• isRepost: true/false — is this a republished vacancy?
• originalPublishDate — when did this vacancy first appear?
• originalUrl — link to the original listing

Use skipReposts: true to automatically exclude reposts from your results.

🇧🇪 Bottleneck profession flag

VDAB marks certain professions as knelpuntberoep — occupations with structural labour market shortages in Belgium. This scraper captures that flag directly:

• knelpuntberoep: true/false — official VDAB labour market classification

Use this field to prioritize shortage-sector vacancies in recruitment pipelines or labour market analyses.

📄 Rich description structure

VDAB vacancies are structured in three distinct sections, each returned separately:

Field	Content
description / descriptionText / descriptionMarkdown	Main job description
requirements	Candidate profile and qualifications
offer / offerText	Salary, benefits, and working conditions

The Markdown description is optimized for RAG pipelines and LLM agents.

⚡ Configurable detail fetching

Toggle fetchDetails to choose between two modes:

• fetchDetails: true (default) — full description, requirements, offer, salary, and contact info per vacancy
• fetchDetails: false — list-only mode: title, company, city, contract type, and publish date only — 30× faster

Use list-only mode for monitoring or bulk cataloguing, and detail mode when you need the full vacancy content.

💰 Salary extraction from offer text

Salary information on VDAB is embedded in the offer section as free text. This scraper parses those values automatically:

Field	Example
salaryMin	3500
salaryMax	5000
salaryType	"monthly"

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Input parameters

| Parameter | Type | Description | Default | |-----------|------|-------------|---------|| | keyword | string | Search term, e.g. "developer" or "verpleegkundige". Leave empty for all vacancies. | — | | keyword2 | string | Optional second keyword — scraped in the same run | — | | keyword3 | string | Optional third keyword — scraped in the same run | — | | location | string | Filter by city or municipality, e.g. "Gent" or "Antwerpen" | — | | province | string | Filter by province, e.g. "oost-vlaanderen" or "Limburg" | — | | contractType | string | Filter by contract type, e.g. "Vaste Job" or "Interim" | — | | workRegime | string | Filter by work schedule, e.g. "voltijds" or "Dagwerk" | — | | sort | select | Standard / Most recent / Most relevant | Standard | | maxResults | integer | Maximum number of vacancies to collect (1–10,000) | 100 | | fetchDetails | boolean | Fetch full description, salary, requirements, and contact info per result | true | | daysOld | integer | Only include vacancies published within the last N days | — | | skipReposts | boolean | Skip vacancies already seen in previous runs | false | | startUrls | array | Scrape specific vacancy URLs directly | — | | requestDelayMs | integer | Delay between requests in milliseconds | 150 | | maxPagesToScan | integer | Maximum search pages to scan (1 page = 25 items) | 200 |

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Output schema

{
  "id":                  "73322557",
  "url":                 "https://www.vdab.be/vindeenjob/vacatures/73322557",
  "source":              "vdab.be",
  "title":               "Verpleegkundige intensieve zorgen",
  "company":             "UZ Gent",
  "companyWebsite":      "https://www.uzgent.be",
  "city":                "Gent",
  "contractType":        "Vaste Job",
  "workRegime":          "Dagwerk",
  "fullTimePartTime":    "voltijds",
  "experience":          "Geen ervaring vereist",
  "educationLevel":      ["Bachelor"],
  "publishDate":         "2026-03-18",
  "modifyDate":          "2026-03-20",
  "description":         "<p>Als verpleegkundige op onze IZ afdeling...</p>",
  "descriptionText":     "Als verpleegkundige op onze IZ afdeling...",
  "descriptionMarkdown": "## Functieomschrijving\n\nAls verpleegkundige...",
  "requirements":        "<p>Je beschikt over een bachelor verpleegkunde...</p>",
  "offer":               "<p>Wij bieden een marktconform salaris...</p>",
  "offerText":           "Wij bieden een marktconform salaris...",
  "salaryMin":           3200,
  "salaryMax":           4800,
  "salaryType":          "monthly",
  "contactName":         "Sarah Declercq",
  "contactEmail":        "s.declercq@uzgent.be",
  "contactPhone":        null,
  "applyUrl":            null,
  "logoUrl":             "https://www.vdab.be/img/logo/uzgent.png",
  "knelpuntberoep":      true,
  "isRepost":            false,
  "originalPublishDate": null,
  "originalUrl":         null,
  "contentHash":         "sha256-abc...",
  "scrapedAt":           "2026-03-22T10:00:00.000Z"
}

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Examples

Developer vacancies in Antwerp:

{ "keyword": "developer", "location": "Antwerpen" }

Bottleneck professions only, most recent, no reposts:

{ "keyword": "verpleegkundige", "sort": "recent", "skipReposts": true }

Fast bulk collection — list mode, last 7 days, three sectors:

{
  "keyword": "logistiek",
  "keyword2": "chauffeur",
  "keyword3": "magazijnier",
  "fetchDetails": false,
  "daysOld": 7,
  "maxResults": 2000
}

Scrape a specific vacancy directly:

{
  "startUrls": [
    { "url": "https://www.vdab.be/vindeenjob/vacatures/73322557" }
  ]
}

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💰 Pricing

$1.00 per 1,000 results — you only pay for successfully retrieved vacancies. Failed retries and filtered reposts are never charged.

Results	Cost
100	~$0.10
1,000	~$1.00
10,000	~$10.00
100,000	~$100.00

Flat-rate alternatives typically charge $29–$49/month regardless of usage. At 10,000 results/month, this scraper costs significantly less with no commitment.

Use the Max results cap and fetchDetails: false for list-only runs to control your spend exactly.

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Pricing

This actor uses Pay Per Result pricing at $1 per 1,000 results.

Volume	Cost
100 results	$0.10
1,000 results	$1
10,000 results	$10.00

No subscription fees. Pay only for successfully scraped listings.

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Performance

Mode	Run	Time
List only (fetchDetails: false)	100 vacancies	~5s
List only (fetchDetails: false)	1,000 vacancies	~1 min
Full details (fetchDetails: true)	50 vacancies	~20 min
Full details (fetchDetails: true)	100 vacancies	~40 min

Full detail mode loads each vacancy page individually. Use list-only mode for high-volume monitoring and detail mode when full descriptions and contact info are required.

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Known limitations

• Apply URL: VDAB uses an on-site application modal — applyUrl is null for most listings. External apply links are captured when available.
• Salary: Not structured in the vacancy data — extracted from the offer text where possible. salaryMin and salaryMax are null when salary is not mentioned.
• Contact phone: Rarely published on VDAB; VDAB support numbers are filtered automatically. contactPhone is null for most listings.
• Province: Not available as a structured output field — use the province input filter for server-side filtering.
• Detail speed: Full detail mode navigates each vacancy page individually and is significantly slower than list-only mode. Set maxResults carefully when using fetchDetails: true.

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Technical details

• Source: vdab.be — official Flemish public employment service, 50,000+ active vacancies
• Memory: 1024 MB
• Proxy: Apify RESIDENTIAL
• Repost storage: KeyValueStore vdab-job-dedup, 90-day TTL
• Retry: Automatic retry on network errors, exponential backoff

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Additional services

Need a custom actor, additional filters, scheduled runs, or integration support? Send an email to info@unfencedgroup.nl — we build on request.

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