Jun 13, 2019
Matching jobs to job seekers in Jordan
A preview into the challenges of the Jordan Compact and how the IRC is addressing them
The Syrian conflict has resulted in one of the world’s largest displacement crises. Over 5 million people have fled Syria since 2011 and settled in neighboring countries. Jordan has taken on a leading role by hosting some 660,000 registered refugees and upwards of 1.3 million by some estimates.
After eight years, the challenges associated with protracted displacement continue to grow. Refugees’ savings and assets are nearing exhaustion, opportunities for formal employment are extremely limited, and there is no clear pathway for return to their homes. The international community has developed several solutions, but few have been as debated as the Jordan Compact, which seeks to turn emergency humanitarian response into a long-term development opportunity.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is implementing Project Match in an effort to support the outcomes of the Compact. Ultimately, Match aims to help realize meaningful change for refugees and host communities in Jordan. A year of fieldwork is now highlighting significant challenges and key lessons learned for both this Compact and any future compacts like it.
What is the Jordan Compact?
In 2016, the international community and the Government of Jordan developed a framework that approached the Syrian refugee crisis as an opportunity for growth and development, shifting from a focus on short-term humanitarian aid to one on education, growth, investment, and job creation — both for Jordanians and Syrian refugees. This framework is enshrined in the Jordan Compact, a first-of-its-kind agreement aiming to provide 200,000 employment opportunities to refugees in exchange for tariff-free access to markets abroad and increased direct financial support to the government.
Underpinning the Jordan Compact is the premise that the needs of Syrian refugees and host communities can be simultaneously addressed in a way that benefits both. By providing trade-based incentives for Jordan’s business community and encouraging the employment of vulnerable Jordanians and Syrian refugees, a mutually reinforcing mechanism of employment and trade could be established.
What is the situation three years on?
Progress has been uneven. While the Government of Jordan has made great strides in working to open up the economy to Syrian refugees and provide them work permits (chiefly in manufacturing, agriculture, and construction), only 12 businesses have applied to export under the terms of the Compact and only four have actually exported (as part of the Rules of Origin Agreement signed between Jordan and the EU).
Several reasons for this low application rate were identified early on, from a lack of clear trade strategies among firms to a costly export process. The international community has responded in different ways, such as by providing direct support to businesses to build their capacity for export, arranging trade fairs, and advocating for policy change to reduce the cost of doing business.
However, a parallel challenge was identified that compounds these trade difficulties: the inability of businesses to find the right workers and retain them. It was thought that this “labor market problem” was one simply of misinformation or a lack of material resources on the part of job seekers (i.e., childcare or transportation) — but we have found is that it is much more complicated.
For many Jordanians and Syrian refugees looking for work, there is indeed a lack of information on what opportunities exist. For Syrian refugees, in particular, an environment of misinformation has led to the belief that formal employment will result in humanitarian aid being cut off. However, there are also significant material barriers that impact a job seeker’s ability to find and retain employment — chief among them transportation and childcare considerations — which keep many from seeking out and retaining employment. In addition, the private sector, which is mostly comprised of small- and medium-sized businesses, lacks the resources to find workers that are properly prepared, skilled, and motivated.
But the issues go much deeper than this.
Project Match was established, along with many other employment matching projects, to help bridge those gaps between employer and job seeker. For the past year, we’ve been connecting Syrian refugees and Jordanians with jobs and each successful placement has been a challenge. Our data and experience on the ground shows that key challenges are also presented by mutual biases and negative perceptions between employers and job seekers.
In our interviews, we heard from some Jordanian firms that prefer to hire third-country nationals, such as workers from south or southeast Asia, rather than Jordanians or Syrians. The perception among business-owners is that Jordanians and Syrians are less skilled and have higher turnover rates. There are also perceptions that Jordanians expect higher wages and are relatively less productive. However, according to our data, Jordanians and Syrians expect, on average, only slightly more than minimum wage (around 250 Jordanian Dinars), have an average of 6.4 years of work experience, and about half (56%) have a “first choice” preference for trade-linked sectors of the economy (specifically, manufacturing or production). Though the potential exists for successful local hiring, it seems that it is clouded by prejudice.
Jordanian and Syrian job seekers themselves hold biases that dissuade them from seeking out low-skill jobs in manufacturing or retaining them. Many who express a reluctance for work in these jobs do so because they expect the pay to be too low, the hours too long (eight hours a day, six days a week as a norm), and the work either degrading or without career prospects. In addition, the special economic zones that make up the backbone of Jordan’s export sector (and which are specifically targeted by the Jordan Compact) have such a poor reputation among local communities that many families will not allow members to work there, especially women, for fear of sexual harassment or assault. In reality, the quality of employment in the economic zones has improved significantly over the last decade (thanks to efforts of projects such as Better Work Jordan and others). Many employers are now offering improved benefits to retain employees. From the interviews that we conducted with 14 manufacturing firms across Jordan, four provide health insurance, eight provide meals, 12 provide transportation to and from the place of work, and all are registered with social security.
How is the IRC addressing these challenges?
Project Match implements targeted interventions that help people find work. While doing so, Match aims to learn more about the complex motivations and perceptions that drive the unskilled labor market and behaviors of export-oriented firms. Achieving these twin goals can lead to better employment outcomes for our beneficiaries and will also help us to provide recommendations and guidance to improve the Jordan Compact as well as future compacts in other countries.
The services provided by Project Match directly support the Jordan Compact in two distinct ways. In the short- and medium-terms, we are helping job seekers identify employment opportunities and firms to fill vacancies with the right candidates through networks of entrepreneurial employment service officers and an algorithm that optimally matches jobs and job seekers. In the long-term — and thanks to a comprehensive research agenda — we will also be placed to provide more clarity on some important questions facing the humanitarian and development community invested in the success of the Jordan Compact:
- What specific support do people need to find and retain jobs?
- What incentives and biases are shaping the labor market and which need to be addressed or changed?
- What information asymmetries characterize the unskilled or informal labor market in which most Syrian refugees must operate?
- What basic employment challenges must be understood before more ambitious development objectives — like increased trade — can be successfully implemented?
The answers to these questions will allow for a better understanding of the constraints around employment programs, which can assist in developing future agreements similar to the Jordan Compact and help to address the ever-present challenge of extended displacement crises: livelihood generation. The Jordan Compact is being carefully monitored by the international community to see if it truly does generate results that positively impact refugees, host communities, and governments.
The new Global Compact on Refugees recognizes that displacement is not temporary and highlights the need for long-term engagement on issues like employment and income generation for refugees. New models are being proposed in other countries, including Ethiopia, Lebanon, and Turkey — lessons drawn from the Jordan Compact experience will be invaluable in guiding those countries’ approaches.
