Finding work after fleeing war: companies aim to help refugees find jobs

This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum.

• Refugees and forcibly displaced populations are often locked out of labour markets in countries which host them.
• The World Economic Forum is working to expand employment opportunities for refugees and accelerate hiring through the Refugee Employment Alliance.
• The 16 founding partners alone expect to support 14,000+ refugees by the end of 2023.

The impact of accelerating refugee employment.

By June 2023, the war in Ukraine had forced over 6 million people to flee their homeland and cross borders in search of safety. This war is the latest in an ever-increasing number of conflicts around the world, reinforcing the need to find long-term solutions in countries of origin while enabling people displaced by war to find ways to support themselves and their families in host countries.

In May 2022, the World Economic Forum launched the Refugee Employment Alliance to accelerate global support for the economic integration of refugees. Co-chaired by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Ingka Group, the alliance is providing solutions to refugee employment that are globally relevant and scalable.

“The biggest challenge that many refugees face is access to the formal labour market. Language barriers, lack of recognition of their qualifications, and discrimination all limit job opportunities. Education and work are interrupted when one is forced to flee as well as the absence of social and professional networks, making it difficult to compete successfully in the job market. As a result, refugees face high levels of unemployment and economic insecurity, which inhibits their ability to support themselves and contribute to their new communities. This alliance is an important and much-needed initiative that opens up job opportunities that would lead to independence, dignity and income for refugees seeking decent work and add economic vibrancy to their host communities.”— Kelly T. Clements, Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR

“After several years of experience working with refugees, we know that supporting refugee employment and employability is good for both business and society. Refugees bring diversity, which sparks innovation within our company; for example, when it comes to our recruitment practices. From our internal co-worker surveys, we know that refugees increase co-workers’ pride and a sense of belonging to the company. Finally, refugees are experts at resilience and adaptability and tend to stay with the same employer longer, which is a true win-win.”
— Tolga Öncu, Chief Operations Officer, Ingka Group

The Refugee Employment Alliance accelerates progress on refugee hiring by acting as platform to coordinate action across the public and private sectors. In addition to bringing a diverse group of partners together and highlighting commitments to hire refugees, the goal is to ensure those already committed to refugee hiring can do so with greater speed.

The 16 founding partners alone expect to support 14,000+ refugees by the end of 2023.

Ingka has created a shareable toolkit that other employers can use to run their own refugee support programmes. Its Skills for Employment initiative has been rolled out in 22 countries and expects to support 2,500 refugees by the end of 2023.

In 2022, ManpowerGroup launched a customized job postings platform, the Jobs Exchange via Welcome.US, to support refugees and forcibly displaced populations in accessing job opportunities. In just one year, more than 100,000 jobs have been advertised by over 500 employers on the Jobs Exchange and thousands of refugees successfully matched.

Partners of the Alliance include Adecco, Agility, APCO Worldwide, BP, Deutsche Post DHL Group, Flex, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), Kale Holding, Limak Holding, Manpower Group, SAP, Tent and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

What’s the challenge with refugee employment?

At the end of 2022, nearly 32 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, or human rights violations.

Refugees and forcibly displaced populations continue to be locked out of local labour markets. In many countries, people with refugee status are not legally allowed to work. Other challenges refugees face when job hunting in their new countries include requirements to work in a local language and, in some cases, local certifications and documentation. Many refugees often also experience a multitude of social and cultural issues.

Companies keen to hire refugees often cite challenges matching refugee talent to the right jobs.

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Our approach to increase employment and employability for refugees.

Organizations that have joined the Refugee Employment Alliance have worked together to consolidate learning into actionable insight.

In January 2023, the alliance published a briefing paper, Enabling the Economic Integration of Refugees: Lessons learned on refugee employment and employability from the rapid response to Ukraine, and hosted government, business and civil society leaders at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2023.

The publication sets out four key areas for action:

• Ensure legal and timely access to local labour markets
• Prioritize skills-first approaches and reduce reliance on language in hiring
• Create visibility for job openings and proactively support job matching
• Drive public-private partnerships that combine social and employment support

In 2023, the alliance will further consolidate learning into actionable insight across the pillars above and activate the Forum’s physical and digital platforms to advance action through public-private dialogue and knowledge exchange.

Partners within the alliance are committed to developing refugee hiring and employability support initiatives within their respective organizations. In 2023, it will actively scale its engagement to additional companies and government partners. Among others, the alliance will involve the 500 companies Ingka pledged to support at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2023 and engage an additional 10 government partners identified together with UNHCR.

Scaling access to employment through technology partners.

The Refugee Employment Alliance leverages the Forum’s network of global technology leaders to crowd-in solutions that support employers in identifying and hiring refugees into good work. Globalization Partners and Velocity, two workforce technology providers, have committed support to the alliance in 2023 and will actively work with members to co-design solutions that streamline and scale refugee hiring.

Coursera and Skillsoft are committed to defining the courses and credentialing pathways to accelerate hiring, providing access to content at no cost to refugees. For example, the Ukraine Ministry of Education and Science partnered with Coursera to offer learning resources to 40,000 students from 280 Ukrainian universities. Students have spent over 315,000 hours earning credentials and learning new skills such as English language, leadership and management, and computer programming.

Get involved.

The Refugee Employment Alliance is an initiative hosted by the World Economic Forum’s Centre for the New Economy and Society and is open to chief human resources officers, government ministers and civil society executives, all of whom can appoint a delegate to support the initiative’s activities.

For more information, please contact us.