Speaking at an integration conference earlier this year, Swiss Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga laid out the advantages of better integrating refugees in the job market.
“If you have a job, you don’t need welfare,” she said.
The justice and finance ministries, along with three cantonal govement conferences, set out to define a more concrete plan and budget for such integration while determining how to better utilise the professional potential of refugees.
A 2014 study from the United Nations agency UNHCR showed that, despite many training offerings at a cantonal level, only about one in five refugees had found work in the first five years after their arrival, during which time the federal govement is still legally responsible for them.