TEST __ General

The Labor Market Integration of Refugees (LMIR) research team of the BSS faculty

Europe is experiencing a substantial influx of first time migrants. While the labor market integration of refugees with a residence permit (called ‘vergunninghouders’ in Dutch) is called for, only 11% of the refugees who received a residence permit in 2014, found work 2,5 years later (SER, 2018; for a selection of relevant reports, articles, and output: Links). Several factors both on the side of the migrants (e.g., group characteristics) and on the side of the organizations (e.g., diversity management approach) may contribute to this low employment rate (Background).

Aims: bridging the social science-society gap

The interdisciplinary LMIR research team at the University of Groningen aims to

study organizations’ existing inclusiveness policies and practices in relation to perceptions of cultural distance and its combined effect on the selection and retention of refugees in their workforce.
develop, test, and evaluate a training for employers/managers to reduce the cultural distance between organizations and refugees with a residence permit (vergunninghouders).

Approach: interdisciplinary and evidence-based

We assume that the successful selection and retention of first time migrants is dependent on both migrant characteristics and organization factors. We coin this the migrant-organization fit, referring to the possibility that organisations may perceive migrant workers to not fit well within their organisation and thus are less inclined to hire them.

Improving the migrant-organisation fit may thus contribute to the integration of migrant workers in the Dutch labor market. In our research we therefore study the employment process of refugees with residence permits from both the side of migrant and of the employer. We do this by means of combining social and cultural psychological and organization sociological approaches to labor market integration processes. From a social and cultural psychological perspective, the perceived cultural distance (i.e., norms and values) between migrants and the host society (e.g., Blommaert et al., 2014; Zhang et al., 2013) may contribute to the perception that the migrant-organisation fit is low. From an organization sociological perspective, general HRM practices and diversity management approaches in organisations may matter (Dietz et al., 2015).

Improving perceived cultural fit as well as an inclusive diversity management is a promising approach to improve the selection and retention of refugees with a residence permit in the Dutch labor market. Importantly, whereas most interventions have focused on training migrants to better fit within the organisation, little is known about interventions tailored to organisations, even though organisations express interest in hiring migrant workers but anticipate difficulties.

Our interdisciplinary research Team (social psychology, cultural psychology, organizational sociology) employs an evidence-based approach to develop relevant insights and tools for involved stakeholders to further the integration first-generation migrants in the workforce (for our specific project goals: Projects).

Our network

Our network consists of several actors in the field of labor market integration in the Netherlands, such as the municipality Groningen, Groningen Verwelkomt, the Ministry of Social Affairs, Kennisplatform Integratie & Samenleving, Windesheim (specifically through the Leernetwork headed by dr. Sjiera de Vries), and UAF. Additionally, we actively participate in the NWA funded research program JOIN: Jongeren in een veerkrachtige samenleving. Naar nieuwe arrangementen voor inclusiviteit en participatie.

We are open to discuss possible collaborations, for example with companies who (are planning to) hire first generation migrant workers or organizations working in this field. Please contact the labor market integration team members. We also invite students at the University of Groningen to be involved in our research activities (see Teaching or read more here).