The population in this report is not covered by the changes that were introduced through the new Integration Act (Act of 11 July 2020 no. 127).
In total, over 61,500 people have completed the introduction program from 2005 to 2019, and of these, 95 per cent still live in the country. More than half of the participants have come from Eritrea, Syria and Somalia, and since 2017 Syria has dominated among those who have completed the introduction programme.
The former participants in the introductory program are a complex group. Both individual characteristics of the participants, the time after completing the program and a wide range of other factors affect their degree of participation in the labor market. The proportion of employed people varies between the cohorts, and there are relatively large differences between women and men. The level of education is generally low, and as many as seven out of ten have their highest level of education at either primary or upper secondary school level.
As of 2010, it has been a national target that at least 70 per cent should be employed or in education within one year of finishing the introductory programme. Nevertheless, we find in this report that none of the cohorts in the period 2005 to 2019 will reach this proportion in 2020, even though it has been as much as 15 years since the end of the induction programme.
On average, 43 per cent of all those who had completed the introduction program in the period 2005-2019 were employed in 2020. The proportion varies from cohort to cohort, and the highest average is found at 60 per cent for those who finished in 2009, i.e. 11 years before the measurement year in 2020 For all cohorts, the proportion increases in the years after the end of the introduction programme, but the growth slows and levels off 8-10 years after the introduction programme. For women, the employment rate is clearly lower than for men - but the differences decrease the longer time passes after the end of the programme.
The income situation among the former participants in the introduction programme in 2020 are closely linked to the results on the labour market. The income situation is clearly worse than for comparable groups in the population, and the general income level is only 60 per cent of the level in the population. Transfers make up 60 per cent of household income, compared to less than 20 per cent in the population. In addition, the proportion with persistently low income is very high (50 per cent), compared to the entire population (10 per cent).
There are some differences according to country of origin, both in terms of labor market status and income situation in the years after the end of the introductory programme. As in previous reports, we find that it is among people with a background from Somalia and Iraq that, on average, have the lowest share in work and education and the weakest income situation. We find clearly better results for former participants from, among others, Myanmar, Eritrea and Ethiopia, with a greater proportion of employed people, higher income levels and fewer people with persistently low incomes.
In this report, we have seen that people who have completed the introduction program to a greater extent than the general population struggle to get a permanent connection to working life. Among those who completed the introduction program between 2005 and 2009, around 1 in 4 have been employed in all the years between 2010 and 2020. At the same time, around 1 in 5 have not been employed at all during this period.