VDAB Scraper

Scrape job listings from vdab.be — Belgium's official Flemish public employment service with 80,000+ active vacancies across Flanders, Brussels and Wallonia. Filter by keyword, city, province, contract type and work regime. No API key required.

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Why this scraper?

🏛️ Official government source — complete and reliable

VDAB is the official Flemish employment agency. The vacancy database is maintained by government mandate and contains listings not found on any commercial job platform.

📄 Three description formats — ready for AI pipelines

Every job description is delivered in three formats:

Field	Format	Use case
description	HTML	Web applications or ATS
descriptionText	Plain text	Search indexing, keyword analysis
descriptionMarkdown	Markdown	RAG pipelines, LLM agents, embeddings

🔄 Repost detection — unique in the market

Companies frequently republish the same vacancy. This scraper detects that automatically and flags reposts — without charging you for them.

Each result includes:

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

Use skipReposts: true to automatically skip republications.

🔍 Advanced filters

In addition to keyword and location, filter by province, contract type and work regime to scope your dataset precisely.

⏱️ daysOld filter — fresh vacancies only

Set daysOld: 1 for daily runs that only collect newly published listings.

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Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Description	Default
keyword	string	Search keyword, e.g. "developer" or "verpleegkundige"	—
keyword2	string	Additional keyword (optional, batched)	—
keyword3	string	Additional keyword (optional, batched)	—
location	string	City or municipality, e.g. "Gent" or "Antwerpen"	—
province	string	Province, e.g. "oost-vlaanderen"	—
contractType	string	Contract type filter	—
workRegime	string	Work schedule, e.g. "voltijds" or "deeltijds"	—
sort	string	Sort order: "standaard", "recent", "relevantie"	"standaard"
maxResults	integer	Maximum number of vacancies to collect	100
daysOld	integer	Skip vacancies older than N days	—
skipReposts	boolean	Skip vacancies seen in previous runs	false
fetchDetails	boolean	Fetch full job description and contact info	true
startUrls	array	Specific vacancy URLs to scrape	—

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Output schema

{
  "id":                   "73322557",
  "url":                  "https://www.vdab.be/vindeenjob/vacatures/73322557",
  "title":                "Software Developer",
  "company":              "Cegeka",
  "city":                 "Hasselt",
  "province":             "Limburg",
  "contractType":         "Vaste Job",
  "workRegime":           "Dagwerk",
  "fullTimePartTime":     "voltijds",
  "experience":           "Niet van belang",
  "educationLevel":       ["Bachelor"],
  "publishDate":          "2026-03-20",
  "modifyDate":           "2026-03-20",
  "description":          "<p>Full job description...</p>",
  "descriptionText":      "Full job description...",
  "descriptionMarkdown":  "## Job description\n\n...",
  "requirements":         "<p>Required qualifications...</p>",
  "offer":                "<p>What we offer...</p>",
  "offerText":            "What we offer...",
  "salaryMin":            null,
  "salaryMax":            null,
  "salaryType":           null,
  "contactName":          "Jan Janssen",
  "contactEmail":         "jobs@cegeka.com",
  "contactPhone":         "+32 11 22 33 44",
  "applyUrl":             "https://www.cegeka.com/jobs/12345",
  "companyWebsite":       "https://www.cegeka.com",
  "logoUrl":              "https://cdn.vdab.be/...",
  "knelpuntberoep":       false,
  "isRepost":             false,
  "originalPublishDate":  null,
  "originalUrl":          null,
  "contentHash":          "b2c3d4e5"
}

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Examples

Developer vacancies in Gent:

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

Nurses in Oost-Vlaanderen, full-time:

{ "keyword": "verpleegkundige", "province": "oost-vlaanderen", "workRegime": "voltijds" }

Fresh IT vacancies, no reposts:

{ "keyword": "software", "location": "Antwerpen", "daysOld": 7, "skipReposts": true }

Scrape specific vacancy URLs:

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

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Performance

Run	Time	Results
100 vacancies (no details)	~2 min	100 listings
100 vacancies (with details)	~4 min	100 full listings
500 vacancies (with details)	~18 min	500 full listings
1,000 vacancies (with details)	~35 min	1,000 full listings

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Pricing

$2.00 per 1,000 results — you only pay for successfully collected vacancies. Failed retries and filtered reposts do not count.

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Known limitations

• Apply URL: VDAB uses a modal-based application system for many listings — applyUrl is null when no external link is available.
• Salary: Available only when the employer explicitly publishes it — null otherwise.
• Company address: Not available in the page HTML — this field is always null.

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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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