Shorter asylum procedures reduce unemployment

Although refugees in Switzerland are allowed to take up employment while their asylum application procedure is still pending, a long wait reduces their chances of entering into employment. Researchers supported by the SNSF have now robustly quantified this negative effect for the first time. On 5 June 2016, the Swiss electorate approved an accelerated asylum procedure. One of the arguments used at the time was that this would allow refugees to enter the job market more quickly and thus reduce the strain on the welfare system. Researchers supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) have now also been able to quantitatively demonstrate - for the first time worldwide - that refugees who are granted asylum quickly are indeed more likely to find employment (*). For their study, Dominik Hangartner from the University of Zurich and the London School of Economics together with colleagues Jens Hainmueller and Duncan Lawrence from the Stanford-Zurich Immigration Policy Lab analysed refugee data in the migration information system maintained by the Swiss State Secretariat for Migration (SEM). As well as the duration of the procedure, the system also records employment information for provisionally admitted asylum seekers - for example, those fleeing the war zone in Syria - in the five years following their arrival.