A variety of schemes have been implemented across Europe to help refugees integrate into the labour market. Yet as Ihssane Otmani writes, the goal of quickly securing employment for refugees frequently comes at the expense of their long-term aspirations.
A former telecommunications student in Switzerland is now training in warehouse logistics. He’s not alone. During my research with 29 refugees and 23 street-level bureaucrats in the Canton of Vaud, I encountered many such cases.
These trajectories are not driven by a lack of talent, but by a systemic dynamic I call the “low ambition equilibrium” – a state where both institutional actors and refugees tacitly converge on modest, short-term goals, often at the expense of long-term aspirations and social mobility.
This apparent “win-win” – faster employment for refugees, reduced welfare costs for the state – comes at a high price: wasted potential, entrenchment of inequality and a subtle reinforcement of systemic barriers.
The integration paradox
Switzerland’s vocational education and training system is frequently hailed as a model of success. It combines hands-on paid work with formal education and provides apprenticeships in sectors such as logistics, care for the elderly and construction – areas often facing labour shortages.
While the model does offer opportunities, in practice, it has become a funnel into low-skilled employment for many refugees, regardless of their prior education or professional background. Early on, social workers and job coaches – the street-level bureaucrats responsible for implementing integration policy – steer refugees toward “realistic” pathways, typically the ones deemed immediately accessible based on legal status and language acquisition.
But this push toward speed and pragmatism obscures deeper mismatches between refugee potential and the structure of available opportunities. As one street-level bureaucrat in another study explained when asked how to advise a refugee aspiring to study medicine, “even Swiss people or native French speakers have trouble, and the failure rate is over 60-70% in the first year”.
This so-called realism is often the result of structural pressures: high caseloads, limited resources and narrow eligibility criteria for upskilling or academic bridging. Street-level bureaucrats find themselves caught between policy demands for rapid labour market integration and the complex, often interrupted educational histories of the people they are meant to support. As Bernardo Zacka has shown in his ethnography of bureaucrats, frontline workers often balance competing moral logics – compassion, efficiency, fairness – within constraining institutional environments.
“Even starting over is hard”
The human cost of this realism is stark. In interviews, refugees consistently described a shrinking of aspirations, not empowerment. Many recounted experiences of administrative exhaustion: navigating complex credential recognition systems, passing multiple language tests, seeking documents from institutions in countries they fled – only to be told that the best path forward was to start again from scratch.One university graduate described the dilemma:
“I think that integrating faster or going to work faster is not about the quality of integration or the quality of work, that’s not the goal… If I tell them I would like to work as a carpenter or something like this, they will say OK, you can do that right away. So there is nothing about my story, my experiences, my studies in Turkey… They think migrants’ education is not good.”
Faced with legal insecurity, permit renewal conditions and the urgent need for family reunification, many refugees recalibrate their ambitions. They begin to believe that accepting any job – even one far below their skills – is the safest strategy. This is not integration as empowerment; it is adaptation to constraint. As Linda Morrice argues, policies that claim to be empowering often fail to consider how structures of recognition – of qualifications, skills and identities – systematically exclude refugees.
The low ambition equilibrium
The concept of a low ambition equilibrium captures the convergence between policy imperatives and survival strategies. Under pressure to integrate “fast” and confronted with inflexible systems, refugees internalise lower aspirations as both legitimate and necessary. Meanwhile, street-level bureaucrats project their own expectations and limitations onto their clients – sometimes unwittingly.
I found in my study that street-level bureaucrats rarely have time to reflect critically on the long-term impact of the paths they suggest. Many internalise labour market constraints as neutral facts, rather than socially produced outcomes. And institutional success is still measured primarily by short-term job placement, not social mobility or career continuity. This results in a paradox: a system designed to “integrate” refugees fast may, in fact, entrench marginalisation.
Beyond language classes and job contracts
To challenge the low ambition equilibrium, we must rethink integration not as a linear process confined to permit upgrades or civic courses, but as a societal challenge involving multiple actors. The burden cannot fall solely on refugees or on street-level bureaucrats navigating impossible mandates.
Key institutions – employers, higher education institutions and professional networks – must be mobilised. Yet many of them, as my research shows, expect refugees to meet the same formal requirements as international students or domestic job applicants, with little flexibility for the life disruptions that displacement entails. Jenny Phillimore and others have shown that meaningful inclusion requires not just access but adaptation – of expectations, pathways and support structures.
Designing for potential, not just productivity
The low ambition equilibrium is not inevitable. But escaping it will require systemic change. This includes creating university bridging programmes tailored for displaced professionals, as well as streamlined and humane credential recognition systems.
English-language vocational and academic tracks, particularly in internationalised sectors should also be a priority. As should dedicated support and reflective spaces for street-level bureaucrats, so they can nurture rather than silence ambition.
Finally, there is a need for accountability mechanisms for employers and universities to recognise their role in refugee inclusion. We must move from measuring outputs to assessing outcomes: long-term empowerment, restored professional identities and equitable access to opportunity.
Refugee integration shouldn’t be about fitting people into pre-cut moulds. It should be about enabling individuals to reclaim and rebuild the futures they were forced to abandon. That requires moving beyond technocratic metrics and asking harder questions about what kind of integration we need, for whom and at what cost. If we design policies for potential, rather than productivity, we might just escape the low ambition equilibrium – and unlock the full promise of refugee inclusion.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: Adoel putra / Shutterstock.com
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