Explaining Refugee Employment Declines: Structural Shortcomings in Federal Resettlement Support

Abstract

Abstract In the United States, the integration experiences of immigrants depend partly on whether they are recognized as refugees or economic migrants. Unlike economic migrants, refugees receive federal resources to help find employment, raising important questions about the role of such government support in migrants’ labor market integration. Our analysis of nationally representative data from the New Immigrant Survey shows that despite early access to government-funded employment services, refugees actually experience employment declines the longer they live in the United States. Drawing on 61 interviews with resettlement experts in refugee-serving organizations across the country, we highlight three interrelated structural weaknesses in the federal refugee resettlement process that help account for these employment declines: (1) retrenched resettlement funding, (2) a logic of self-sufficiency prioritizing rapid employment in generally undesirable and unstable jobs, and (3) siloed networks of refugee-serving organizations. Our findings have important implications for immigrant integration, the welfare state, and the ways that nonprofit organizations shape inequality.