For decades, labor and refugee rights organizations have urged governments to grant refugees the right to work, a cause that gained renewed momentum following the forced displacement of Syrians in the 2010s.
Given that 75% of the global refugee population resides in low- and middle-income countries with high rates of labor informality, the right to work for refugees essentially translates to their integration into local formal economies where decent work opportunities are presumably available. Advocates argue that refugees’ access to formal labor markets fosters both their self-reliance and the development of host economies.
Refugee Work Permits: A Primer
Against this backdrop, an approach touted as the policy compromise du jour is a refugee work permit scheme (RWPS) that separates the right to work from residence rights. For refugees with regularized residency status, a RWPS grants them access to the formal labor market through an additional application process.
Notably, a series of RWPSs were implemented from 2016 onwards in the Middle East, with many of them in (delayed) response to Syrian refugee arrivals. The Jordan Compact and the introduction of work permits for Syrian temporary protection recipients in Turkey present two examples of RWPSs in action. These initiatives were considered as significant steps toward Syrian refugees’ local economic inclusion by the host states, international donors, and aid organizations alike.
Work permits promised improved livelihoods for refugees and greater labor formalization in the Jordanian and Turkish economies. In practice, however, these RWPSs either failed to secure decent work conditions for Syrian permit holders or relegated most refugees to the informal economy, unable to access work permits.
Work Permits Frustrate Rather Than Facilitate Access to Decent Work
This is the key takeaway from research on the Jordan Compact, as well as my own analysis of the RWPS for Syrian refugees in Turkey. In Jordan, work permits did improve income, work stability, and food security for Syrian permit holders. Yet, studies also document how the scheme is hollowed out by the exploitative and discriminatory labor practices that continue under the (dis)guise of formalization. Access to rights at work remains elusive even for Syrian permit holders who, alongside other migrant workers, face long hours, low wages, and a lack of sick leave, among other violations of decent work standards.
In Turkey, although the RWPS might have granted Syrian refugees the right to work, their access to the formal labor market remains highly constrained. My doctoral research reveals how the policy scheme has not had an appreciable impact on Syrian formal employment and economic inclusion in Turkey, which is a predictable finding given the lackluster work permit issuance rates in the country. Also noted in previous studies, permit acquirement depends on employer initiative and numerous conditionalities. These bureaucratic hurdles further discourage permit take-up in an economic landscape where both local and refugee workers may view formalization unfavorably due to its potential negative impact on earnings and flexibility. Ultimately, the policy design renders decent work opportunities in the Turkish formal economy nearly unattainable for Syrian refugees. The scheme fails because it does not account for the country’s entrenched informal economy and Syrian refugees' focus on short-term survival amidst legal and economic precarity.
How to Fix Permits: Recoupling Residency and Employment Rights
What the research makes clear is that RWPSs rarely deliver on the promise of a win-win scenario of wide-scale refugee self-reliance and labor formalization. The uncoupling of residency and employment rights prevents the effective exercise of refugees' right to work in the formal economy and rights at work once formally employed.
Recoupling these rights is a necessary, though not sufficient, prerequisite for any permit scheme worth implementing. A unified permit or registration system that grants refugees both residency and employment rights simultaneously would allow host countries to maintain control over their internal affairs while facilitating refugees’ formal economic inclusion more effectively.
A relevant best practice hails from Poland and its handling of the Ukrainian refugee crisis. Shortly after the invocation of the Temporary Protection Directive by the European Union in 2022, Poland waived work permit requirements for Ukrainians seeking temporary protection, asking only that they obtain a social security (PESEL) number to confirm their residency and employment rights in the country. This change allowed employers to hire Ukrainian nationals simply by notifying labor authorities online, without the need for a separate authorization process.
Recent reporting on Ukrainian refugees’ economic outcomes in Poland—a host economy with a highly informal labor market—indicates much higher formal employment rates among Ukrainian refugees compared to those observed in Jordan or Turkey. While no policy is without flaws and decent work shortages for Ukrainian refugees have emerged, the relative success of a holistic, one-time permit or registration policy over the RWPSs discussed above is undeniable.
About the author
Aslı is a recent DPhil graduate in Migration Studies at the University of Oxford. Her research investigates the intersection of labor informality, formalization policy, and the humanitarian-development nexus through a mixed methods case study of Syrian refugee livelihoods in Turkey. In tandem with her doctoral work, Aslı has undertaken policy and research consultancies for the University of Bath, the MIrreM project, the London School of Economics, the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) and the International Refugee Rights Association, Turkey on various projects thematically ranging from migration management to humanitarian influencing. She has also held teaching positions at the Oxford Department of International Development.
