Labour Market Services for Ukrainian Refugees in Hungary

As a continuation of the previous SMART UA mapping focused on housing support for refugees from Ukraine, this article examines the field of labour market services. The research behind this article mapped the services currently provided by organisations, while also identifying the missing forms of support and the effective practices that have already proven successful.

Labour Market Opportunities and Barriers

According to the experiences of the organizations participating in the research, the desire to work consistently strong among Ukrainian refugees and, in some cases, is even increasing. One key reason is the gradual withdrawal of humanitarian assistance and the reduction of programmes funded mainly by international donors. As family savings are depleted, employment has become the main path to securing a livelihood.

While refugees with temporary protection and dual (Hungarian–Ukrainian) citizenship may work in Hungary without a permit, their access to stable employment is still hindered by language barriers, the non-recognition of qualifications, childcare constraints, and discrimination. Many rely on informal employment channels, which often means precarious conditions and heightened vulnerability.

Services and Good Practices

Participating organisations offer a wide range of employment-related services, most often job-search counselling, CV preparation, career guidance, and Hungarian language or digital literacy courses. Some also provide individual mentoring, employer mediation, and psychosocial support, recognising that finding and keeping a job is not only an economic but also an emotional challenge.

Good practices include complex programmes that combine housing, language training, and employment support, most of which are currently funded through the AMIF (Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund). Yet these initiatives are grant-dependent, and without consistent monitoring or impact assessment, their effectiveness cannot be guaranteed.

Target Groups and Challenges

Field organisations observe very diverse life situations among refugees. For adults ready to work, the main obstacles are language skills and unrecognised qualifications; for women, childcare responsibilities and the lack of part-time jobs are critical barriers. Among older persons and people with disabilities, health conditions often limit employment opportunities.

A particularly vulnerable group are Roma refugees from Zakarpattia with dual citizenship, who are formally not under temporary protection but face similar living conditions, and encounter strong discrimination in both housing and employment. Although they are in principle eligible for employer-based housing support, low education levels, weak self-advocacy, and widespread informal employment – especially in construction – mean that few can access it in practice.

Partnerships and Sustainability

The research highlights that the successful labour-market integration of refugees depends on cooperation among civil, church, municipal, and state actors. Yet such cooperation tends to arise from necessity rather than strategy: civil and church organisations frequently shoulder responsibilities beyond their means to compensate for limited state engagement. Effective integration would require transparent funding frameworks and public data, for example on the number of people receiving employment-based housing or subsistence support.

Lessons and Conclusions

One of the most important lessons of the research is that the labour market integration of Ukrainian refugees is currently determined by two systems that operate side by side but communicate rarely with each other. On the state side, certain schemes exist – such as employment-linked housing support or incentives for inclusive workplaces offering services like Hungarian language classes or childcare. Meanwhile, civil and church actors operate their own employment and social services, but there is no structural coordination or data exchange between the two.

In the long term, genuine integration can only be achieved if cooperation and information-sharing between these systems become institutionalised, and if the state assumes the role of a committed, strategic partner in financing, designing, and coordinating employment and integration programmes.