A new study shows that the employment rate of refugees increases with the length of stay. However, overall it is still quite low.
A refugee at the Arrivo training workshop in Berlin Photo: Michael Gottschalk/photothek/imago
NUREMBERG epd | The employment rate of refugees increases with the length of their stay in Germany. This is demonstrated by a study published on Thursday by the Institute for Labor Market Research and Occupational Research (IAB) in Nuremberg. Consequently, seven years after their arrival, 63 percent of refugees are employed. Eight years after the move, the figure is 68 percent. The study refers to refugees who arrived in Germany between 2013 and 2019.
According to the study, 31 percent of refugee women who arrived in the country in 2015 were employed, while 75 percent of men were employed. According to the results of labor market researchers, not only did the employment rate increase with increasing length of stay, but the quality of employment also improved. 76 percent of employed refugees who moved here in 2015 were employed full-time in 2022.
The average gross monthly earnings of full-time workers in the cohort that arrived in 2015 was €2,570 and for all employed refugees it was €2,250. With an average gross hourly wage of 13.70 euros, the average earnings of the 2015 cohort were in 2022 above the low wage threshold of 12.50 euros in Germany.
“The institutional and political framework conditions are decisive for integration into the labor market,” explained the head of the IAB research department, Herbert Brücker. The acceleration of asylum procedures and the gradual reduction of employment ban periods are accompanied by an increase in refugee employment rates. The results also showed that residency requirements affect employment and that placement in shelters has a particularly strong negative association with labor market integration. Men living in this type of shared housing are five percentage points less likely to be employed and women are three percentage points less likely.