Since the end of April 2023, people displaced from Ukraine have had free access to the labor market. But with the integration into the labor market, you can be “anything but satisfied,” explains AMS board member Johannes Kopf about the current unemployment figures.
Although the number of employed Ukrainians has recently increased again, the labor force participation rate is still only 30 percent. According to Statistics Austria, around 81,000 Ukrainian citizens were registered in Austria at the beginning of 2024. At the end of August, around 6,000 people from Ukraine with displaced person status were registered with the AMS, and 21,000 (as of the end of July 2024) Ukrainian citizens were employed. According to the AMS boss, “far too few” refugees from Ukraine have registered with the employment service as job seekers.
Half of the displaced want to stay permanently
In order to better understand the situation of female and male refugees from Ukraine with regard to labour market integration, the AMS commissioned a study from the University of Innsbruck. 5,316 people from Ukraine and 17 experts were interviewed. About half of the respondents from Ukraine would like to stay in Austria permanently, twelve percent for at least a few years, and about a quarter have not yet decided to do so.
More than half of men and almost two-thirds of women were not looking for work at the time of the survey. Respondents indicated that they were in education (27 percent of men, 14 percent of women), that they could not find a job (around 20 percent) and that their education was not recognized (13 percent). 16 percent of women said that they were not working due to care responsibilities.
Reasons for the hesitant integration
According to labor market experts, the current temporary residence permit for Ukrainians is a “significant obstacle” to labor market integration. In addition, strict additional income limits are also a limiting factor when it comes to basic care for refugees. If you earn too much – even with a part-time job – you risk losing your rights.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
