WASHINGTON, DC — As Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and a handful of other countries experiment with innovative programs that connect employers and refugees with in-demand skills, the central role of the business community in refugee labor pathways has been largely unexplored. A new Migration Policy Institute (MPI) report out today aims to fill this gap by examining employers’ experiences, motivations and constraints to date in recruiting displaced talent. The report, Engaging Employers in Growing Refugee Labor Pathways, draws on focus groups and interviews with employers, policymakers and civil-society stakeholders. It also taps unpublished survey data on employer engagement efforts and participation collected by Talent Beyond Boundaries (TBB), a multi-national non-profit that plays a key role in the implementation of refugee labor mobility initiatives globally. Refugee labor pathways, which help displaced people with in-demand skills access existing economic immigration channels, have attracted considerable attention since their launch in 2018, with EU-funded projects in Belgium, Ireland, Italy and Portugal recently joining earlier ones adopted by Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. The appeal is two-fold: From a humanitarian perspective, these pathways open additional opportunities for refugees and other displaced people to move to safety using existing work visa streams. From a labor market perspective, they offer access to an additional talent pool at a time when many employers are struggling to recruit qualified workers. Participating employers reported high levels of satisfaction, policymakers and civil-society actors are enthusiastic about the potential of these pathways and there is considerable scope for scale, with TBB’s Talent Catalog having more than 114,000 profiles of refugees with skills and experience in 170-plus occupations. However, there is a gap between ambitions and progress, with fewer than 1,000 job offers to date globally; and the employer-refugee matching process is labor- and resource-intensive. While refugee labor pathways aim to help jobseekers overcome obstacles that can be exacerbated by displacement, such as difficulty providing identity or credential documentation, they face a number of challenges. Employers reported difficulty assessing refugees’ qualifications and work experience, lengthy or uncertain processing and relocation timelines, and higher recruitment costs even as some governments and other actors in the process have waived or reduced fees. To address barriers to employer participation and thus facilitate scaling refugee labor pathways, the report suggests more could be done, including: - Addressing costs. While refugee hiring costs can be close to or below those in other recruitment channels, employers remain unclear on the costs for which they are responsible, in particular when it comes to post-arrival services or finding temporary accommodation for the refugee worker.
- Showcasing refugees’ skills more effectively. The organizations that implement refugee labor mobility initiatives should work with employer associations to better map how refugee credentials match up to destination-country standards. Train-to-hire pathways, in which refugee candidates are trained for a specific job role or skill while in their country of first asylum, could bridge skill gaps, particularly for regulated professions.
- Developing a strategic vision. As policymakers and program implementers seek to scale refugee labor pathways, they should develop a vision for which sectors or occupations to focus on given current and projected labor market needs. Presently, such hiring has been concentrated in health care and skilled trades. They also should prioritize developing programs that can rely on less resource-intensive, personalized services without compromising the high-quality recruitment experience that has attracted employers in the first place.
“In the end, refugee labor mobility pathways, even if scaled up, are likely to remain just one tool in the broader toolkit, both for providing refugees with opportunities to restart their lives and for helping meet pressing destination-country labor needs,” MPI analysts Emma Dorst, Kate Hooper, Meghan Benton and Beatrice Dain write. “Still, these pathways show considerable promise on both fronts, and engaging employers effectively will be essential to realizing that potential more fully.” Read the report here: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/employers-refugee-labor-pathways. |
