What is the history of refugee labour mobility programs?

Historically, refugee crises were sometimes addressed by governments and the private sector working together to facilitate labour mobility. This was particularly the case in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. During the second half of the twentieth century, labour mobility fell into disuse as a response to displacement, but the Syrian crisis of 2011 and the subsequent displacement of millions of skilled refugees into the Middle East and Europe, set the stage for a renewed focus on this approach.

• 2015

  In 2015, Talent Beyond Boundaries (TBB) was founded to catalyze labour mobility as an additional and complementary solution for refugees.

• 2016

  In 2016, the UN General Assembly adopted the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, committing states to consider expanding opportunities for labour mobility for refugees. 

  TBB worked with other early supporters of this model, including UNHCR; the Governments of Australia, Canada and the UK; non-governmental organizations, including Jumpstart Refugee Talent, RefugePoint, and Refugee Talent; and employers, community organizations, and hundreds of job applicants living as refugees. These partners worked together to demonstrate that harnessing labour market demand could unlock an urgently needed, sustainable solution to displacement.

  Since 2016, a growing ecosystem of actors — including NGOs, refugee-led organizations, employers, governments, philanthropists, legal services providers, and multilateral organizations — has shown that labour mobility is a viable option for individual refugees and employers and that it has the potential to expand opportunities for refugees at a meaningful scale.

• 2018

  The 2018 Global Compact on Refugees and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration both recognized the potential of labour mobility to expand solutions for displaced people. The Refugee Compact mandated the establishment of a Three-Year Strategy on Resettlement and Complementary Pathways as an instrument for the international community to expand third-country solutions. The Strategy proposed the creation of multi-stakeholder, multi-sectoral partnerships, including dedicated task forces for different pathways.

• 2022

  In 2022, the Global Task Force on Refugee Labour Mobility was founded to encourage additional stakeholders to join the refugee labour mobility movement and to promote ongoing learning and improvement for this burgeoning solution. The world’s first Global Refugee Labour Mobility Summit was held in Amman, Jordan in 2023, co-hosted by Talent Beyond Boundaries and the legal firm Fragomen.

• 2023

  In 2023, the second Global Refugee Forum was held in Geneva. Participants, including governments and nonprofits, set the goal of 200,000 refugees arriving on labour mobility and education pathways in 5 years’ time.

Programs and policies designed to help refugees move for work are now growing rapidly. With ongoing investment, innovation, collaboration and coordination, this solution has the potential to significantly expand opportunities for refugees while also contributing to a diverse and talented global workforce.