“More than 8 million Ukrainian refugees have fled to Europe but only 1 in 3 have found work”

…15 months since the war began, fewer than one in three refugees from Ukraine are employed in their host countries, according to recent research from UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency. Many of the 17,000 refugees interviewed are underemployed, engaged in low paying jobs that are far below their qualifications or, worse, employed in the so-called ‘informal’ economy without protections…

…As a 26-year-old refugee, Viola described how difficult it was to find her footing and secure a full-time role. For a while, she turned to gig economy platforms, like Upwork, but she wanted a stable income to build a life in Poland. She’s now found it, working for software company Nebucode through a new scheme to help refugees into work.

Many refugees end up taking temporary, manual or low-skilled jobs, explains Nicole Etchart, co-founder and CEO of NESsT, which supports social enterprises such as Nebucode around the world, “but what’s needed is sustainable employment”.

“A lot of the refugees are women, so they need to be able to support their families, they need work that allows them to be able to take their children to school. So it’s about the quality of jobs open to them,” she continued…