job matching services CASE STUDY

Transcription

1 job matching services CASE STUDY DRC MENA livelihoods learning programme JORDAN DECEMBER 2017 Danish Refugee Council Jordan Office 14 Al Basra Street, Um Othaina P.O Box Amman, Jordan The Danish Refugee Council (DRC) is a humanitarian, nongovernmental, non-profit organisation founded in 1956 that works in more than 40 countries throughout the world. DRC fulfils its mandate by providing direct assistance to conflict affected populations refugees, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and host communities in the conflict areas of the world and by advocating on their behalf internationally and in Denmark. A syrian refugee receiving training in DRC s Sanad Centre in Azraq Camp in Jordan. February Photo by:mais Salman/DRC

2 Brief project description DRC provided job matching services in East Amman to Jordanian job seekers as well as refugees from Syria, Sudan, Mauritania, Iraq, Somalia and Yemen. Job matching services included information provision via social media and at a Community Centre, in-house training in soft skills, referral to public vocational training courses, access to technical training delivered by contracted professionals, referral to job opportunities, support in paying for work permit or wage subsidies. In this project, the training programme and job referrals were not necessarily linked. Overall, the project aimed at increasing access to employment and job retention among the target groups. The Theory of Change / Impact Chain for the job matching services is briefly outlined below. From December 2016 to end of September 2017, 4221 people had registered at the Community Centre; among which 2999 had received legal awareness and referral, 28 had received job placement support, 54 people had received support to formalise their status through a freelance work permit, 68 had participated in vocational training, 349 had received in-centre training in soft skills, and 738 people had been referred to outsourced training (including scholarships). Impact chain for the job matching services 1 2 Job seekers among the target group are identified and registered Clients receive livelihoods counselling/awareness sessions (and are referred either to skills training, or to jobs with interested employers) Trainees are more employable, employment rates among trainees go up 3 4 Improved employment leads to social and economic self-reliance 3 Employment rates among job seekers referred to jobs goes up 4 Social cohesion among displaced population and Jordanian hosts is strengthened Observations and findings 1. Market information: DRC Jordan collects a lot of information about markets; however, the team still resorts to a case by case approach to identifying vacancies and then linking job seeker to employer. This is labour intensive. Some job seekers applied directly to companies after seeing job advertisements posted by DRC on Facebook, without coming to the centre. 2. Legal framework: The project was implemented within the framework of the 2016 Jordan Compact (Government s commitment to create 200,000 work permits Keeping up with the constant policy changes (most recently the launch of a freelance work permit) has been complicated for both employers and job seekers. DRC has helped people of concern to navigate these policy changes. DRC is also a key source of information for people in an illegal situation, who cannot go to the authorities for information. 3. Formalisation: Despite the Government s encouraging policy changes towards increasing refugees employment options, working in the formal sector remains unattractive. Most jobs accessible to refugees are low skilled (while many Syrians in Amman, for instance, have master-level education). Additionally, incentives to work formally in these low skilled jobs are limited. It is an administrative burden for employers, who may pay lower wages and offer fewer benefits to those with an informal status; and, because most work permits are tied to an employer, it reduces flexibility for the employees. The informal sector remains more attractive to most refugees. 2 DRC JORDAN - JOB MATCHING SERVICES 2017 CASE STUDY

3 4. Sponsorship: The fact that DRC was involved in the job referral process was sometimes the main factor for employers to hire a job seeker. Employers welcomed DRC s involvement, either for corporate social responsibility purposes, or because it gave employers more confidence, believing that the candidate had been trained and/or vetted in some way. 5. Working conditions: Jobs that are accessible to refugees are jobs that nobody else wants and which nobody puts up with for long, so employers are used to high staff turnover. As a result, employers tend to put limited emphasis on improving working conditions. DRC s due diligence checks with private sector actors is sensitive and has contributed to reinforcing the mistrust of the private sector towards NGOs. DRC experiences a tension between its role in facilitating as many people as possible to find jobs and its role in protecting rights. 6. Employment trajectories: Many refugees have no choice but to accept a low skilled job with low wages and poor working conditions. People who were able to endure the long working hours in restaurants typically had previously had a harder job in a factory, whilst others left the restaurant job after a couple of weeks. This raises questions on how refugees make choices about taking and staying in jobs, and whether they have a pathway to advancement within the restrictive legal framework and social norms. DAC criteria assessment DAC CRITERIA RELEVANCE COST-EFFICIENCY EFFECTIVENESS & IMPACT SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT The overall relevance of the intervention is harder to assess than had been appreciated. On the one hand, the limited and unattractive job opportunities accessible to Syrian refugees in Jordan limit the relevance of promoting sustainable access to employment. On the other hand, some of the matching services may be relevant, e.g. developing transferrable skills that can be used in different employment situations (including in country of origin); or giving people the opportunity to test different jobs. Most of the available low-level job opportunities for refugees do not require experience, but are physically demanding. Job matching services may therefore be more relevant to younger men. Younger women s participation in the labour market remains a question mark, given the conservative cultural norms of their communities and the fact that they are the primary caretaker. No cost-efficiency analysis has yet been done of this work: it was found that the way DRC budgets are structured do not allow an easy cost-efficiency analysis and we would need to put in place a more systematic registration of staff time (and other costs) to be able to draw conclusions. The project has helped vulnerable Jordanians to find employment, especially in restaurants and hotels. It is harder to assess the impact for refugees because of the question of job retention and the nature of the job opportunities available to them. Including vulnerable Jordanians in the target group has helped reduce tensions between Jordanians and Syrians, and changed the perception among the host community that refugees are taking their jobs. Although the analysis was conducted early in the project, initial trends showed that the activity will produce sustainable impacts for Jordanians. Durable employment for Syrian refugees in Jordan is often more difficult to achieve given the nature of work available as well as the expectations of the refugees themselves. However, job matching services can generate other types of benefits, such as increased networks, improved working conditions over time, access to freelance work permits, etc. DRC JORDAN - JOB MATCHING SERVICES 2017 CASE STUDY 3

4 DAC CRITERIA COVERAGE ASSESSMENT In terms of access to employment, this project has had limited coverage (a target of about 130 clients facilitated in a subsidised short-term placement). There is potential to scale up, given the increasingly permissive legal framework. DRC will have to find and test ways of providing employment support that require lighter investments from the organisation. Main take-aways Programmatic considerations: DRC will investigate different ways in which it can help job seekers to find positions, which rely more on their own independent efforts and reducing the time spent by the team on identifying individual vacancies. DRC will reflect on how it can best balance its responsibility not to put clients into positions of harm of exploitation (through what it considers due diligence ) with an attitude that DRC supports job seekers to make informed choices for themselves. Guidance will be developed with and for staff e.g. minimum standards for job referrals, guidance on due diligence. DRC will change the way it thinks about success, putting more focus on improving employment rates (with refugees having the right assets to find employment), and worry less about job retention in the particular position that DRC matched the client with. Retention in a poor quality job for a refugee may not say much about their livelihoods and capacity to meet their household needs. Potential research areas: DRC wants to better understand why employers were more inclined to recruit people who had been referred by DRC; as well as why potential clients especially Jordanians came to the community centre for job referrals This should help increase our understanding of the role DRC has played, and the roles it could play, in facilitating access to employment. DRC will learn more about the services that it is best placed to deliver. For instance, how far should DRC provide individual counselling, and to which profiles of client? What other options could DRC use, e.g. taking on the role of catalyst and facilitator of peer-topeer and mentoring support? What are refugees employment trajectories over time? Is there potential for refugees to progress from the harder / lower paid jobs to better ones? What are the mechanisms at work? What can best help refugees to earn a living in Jordan, whilst preparing them for sustainable employment once back in their country of origin? 4 DRC JORDAN - JOB MATCHING SERVICES 2017 CASE STUDY

5 Danish Refugee Council DRC JORDAN - JOB MATCHING SERVICES 2017 CASE STUDY 5