Refugee Employment Alliance: Accelerating Support for Refugee Employment

The World Economic Forum's Refugee Employment Alliance identifies four key pathways to accelerate refugee employment: ensuring legal and timely access to work, adopting skills-first hiring practices, providing proactive job matching, and establishing holistic public-private partnerships. The document highlights successful models from countries like Jordan, Kenya, and Germany, and details corporate initiatives from the Ingka Group and ManpowerGroup. The Alliance aims to contribute to a global goal of supporting 1 million refugees by 2027, with partners committing to hire an additional 125,000 refugees by December 2027.

• Legal and timely access to work is critical for social cohesion and preventing the atrophy of refugee skills. Examples include Poland removing work permit requirements for Ukrainian refugees and Colombia implementing a 10-year Temporary Protection Status (TPS) for over 1.7 million Venezuelans in February 2021.
• Jordan's Jordan Compact Agreement, which included over $2 billion in grants and preferential trade with the EU, led to significant economic outcomes: the labour force participation rate for Syrians rose from 28% in 2014 to 33% in 2018, and unemployment fell from approximately 60% to 8% in the same period.
• Kenya used economic modelling to demonstrate that refugee presence increased Turkana's gross regional product by 3.4% and total employment by 2.9%, eventually leading to the 2022 Refugees Act which formalizes access to services and documentation.
• Germany's Asylum Procedure Acceleration Act of 2015 used a 'cluster approach' to fast-track integration services and professional training for those likely to be granted asylum. By 2020, at least 50% of these asylum seekers were in work or paid training.
• Canada and Australia have developed skilled migration pathways for refugees. Canada's Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot (EMPP) and Australia's Skilled Refugee Labour Agreement Program allow refugees with specific skills to access economic migration routes with flexible requirements for education and work experience.
• A 'skills-first' approach prioritizes competencies over formal degrees or job titles, which is particularly beneficial for refugees who may lack documentation. The Ingka Group (IKEA) implements this by using five-day trial periods in Switzerland and conducting interviews in the candidate's preferred language in Poland.
• Proactive job matching through AI and specialized platforms can reduce skills mismatches. ManpowerGroup's Jobs Exchange, in collaboration with Welcome.US and SkyHive, has advertised over 100,000 jobs from over 500 employers in one year.
• The Refugee Employment Alliance partners have hired over 54,000 refugees to date and commit to hiring an additional 125,000 and supporting 33,000 more with training and mentoring by December 2027, contributing to a global goal of supporting 1 million refugees by 2027.

APA

World Economic Forum (2024). Refugee Employment Alliance: Accelerating Support for Refugee Employment. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Refugee_Employment_Alliance_2024.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. Refugee Employment Alliance: Accelerating Support for Refugee Employment. 2024. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Refugee_Employment_Alliance_2024.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=Refugee Employment Alliance: Accelerating Support for Refugee Employment |date=January 2024 |url=https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Refugee_Employment_Alliance_2024.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2024refugee, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{Refugee Employment Alliance: Accelerating Support for Refugee Employment}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2024}, month = jan, url = {https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Refugee_Employment_Alliance_2024.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }