WIIW The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies - Wiener Institut für Internationale Wirtschaftsvergleiche

By Sandra Leitner and Michael Landesmann
photo: istock.com/Juanmonino

wiiw has published a detailed study on the integration of refugees from the Middle East (predominantly from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran) into the Austrian labour market. The analysis is based upon two recent waves of a large-scale survey among – in total - 4,000 refugees and focuses on two specific dimensions of labour market integration: occupational trajectories and the job-skills match. These are the main findings:

• The analysis suggests a steep decline in ‘occupational status’ when comparing the refugees’ last job in their home country and their first job attained in Austria, and a slight recovery afterwards.
• In their home countries, female refugees held higher-level occupations than male ones - and they experience a steeper professional downgrading in Austria.
• The initial decline is particularly strong for persons with tertiary degrees, and for those who had worked as professionals, senior officials and managers before leaving their home countries.
• In contrast, refugees who worked in elementary occupations in their first job in Austria underwent the most widespread upgrading of their occupational status.
• About 60% of the respondents regard themselves as ‘overqualified’ in their current employment; with a higher share of males than females who find themselves ‘overqualified’.
• The share of those who think they are ‘overqualified’ jumps to 70-74% among those with higher educational attainment levels.
• A significant correlation exists between regular social contacts with the host population and a match between skills and job, making the case for policies addressing the social integration of refugees.

Middle Eastern refugees who have arrived in Austria between 2014 and 2016 experience a pronounced initial loss of their occupational status and a subsequent shallow recovery. The analysis shows that the occupational loss was particularly strong for refugees who worked as professionals, senior officials and managers before leaving their home countries. In their first job in Austria, they mainly worked as service and sales workers or in elementary occupations. And – their professional downgrading seems to be of a permanent nature, as 70-80% of service and sales workers kept their first job in Austria. In contrast, refugees who worked in elementary occupations in their first job in Austria underwent the most widespread upgrading of their occupational status, with almost 20% moving to a service or sales job and around 10-12% becoming technicians and associated professionals, plant and machine operators or assemblers. The authors expect a more pronounced recovery of refugees’ occupational status over a longer time period.

Female refugees held higher occupational status in their home countries than males. They however experience a steeper professional downgrading and little subsequent improvement. The survey indicated that the last job female refugees occupied in their home country lay almost 15 ISEI score points above that of male refugees. The occupational trajectories of male refugees follow a relatively flat U-shaped pattern, with an average initial loss of around 8 to 10 points between the last job in the home country and the first job in Austria, and a mild recovery of around 2 points between their first and current job in Austria. Occupational trajectories of female refugees, however, experience a much more significant occupational downgrade of around 21 ISEI points between the last job in the home country and the first job in Austria. Furthermore, female refugees of the third survey wave even seem to undergo a further occupational downgrade.

The higher a refugee’s level of education, the more pronounced are their professional downgrade and subsequent recovery. A comparison of occupational trajectories across educational attainment levels confirms that more highly educated refugees also occupy higher-status jobs. At the same time, the higher the educational attainment level on arrival, the stronger the initial occupational downgrade. The subsequent professional recovery is limited but generally more pronounced among the highly educated refugees than the medium- and low-educated ones. This also corresponds to the self-assessment of higher educated refugees out of whom 70-74% feel overqualified for their current job in Austria.

A large share of refugees self-assess that they are ‘overqualified’ for their current job in Austria. While around 60% considered themselves ‘overqualified’, 18-19% reported a reasonable match between their qualifications and/or work experience and the requirements of their current job  and 8-10% felt ‘underqualified’. This subjective job-skills mismatch was significantly lower for the low-educated, out of which 27% (second survey wave), resp. 39% (third survey wave) thought that their qualifications and work experience ‘match’ their job requirements. Interestingly, a much higher proportion of males than females indicated that they were overqualified.

An important correlation exists between social network relationships with the host population and a job-skills match. Among those refugees who indicated having regular social contacts with the host population, a significantly lower share reported to be ‘overqualified’ in their jobs and a significantly higher share stated that their qualifications and experience match their job requirement. Both these findings indicate that a wider social network with the host population goes along with a better job-skills match.

The policy challenge is that specific attention has to be paid to those with higher educational attainment levels and to women to avoid a protracted period of occupational status loss and to bring their skills potential to successfully integrate into the Austrian labour market. A prolonged period of ‘job-skills’ mismatch not only leads to discouragement and demotivation, it is also inefficient by underutilising the available potential of refugees. Furthermore, policies addressing social integration with the host population can have a significant positive impact on labour market integration and the (self-assessed) match between skills and jobs. This relationship has been more extensively explored in Landesmann and Leitner (2019).

The Study ‘Refugees‘ integration in the Austrian labour market: occupational mobility and job-skills mismatch’ is based on two waves of a large-scale survey (FIMAS) of refugees conducted among 4,000 refugees, mostly from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran. The survey was conducted in three survey waves, whereby the current study is based upon the last two. The second survey wave (FIMAS+) was conducted between December 2017 and April 2018 among 1,600 refugees living in the five Austrian provinces of Vienna, Upper Austria, Styria, Salzburg and Tyrol. The third wave (FIMAS+2) was conducted between March and May 2019 among 2,400 refugees in all nine Austrian provinces. The analysed ‘occupational status’ follows the definition of the International Socio-Economic Index (ISEI), an internationally standardised measure of occupational status, using weighted information on income, education and occupation.