Paid work: precarious, temporary, often informal

Precarious and temporary arrangements have become particularly prevalent in the realm of paid employment. Jordan’s labor market is largely closed to foreign workers. In the case of Syrian refugees, the Jordanian government has essentially limited access to formal employment to a few, predominantly low-skilled and low-wage jobs in sec­tors such as agriculture, construction, and certain service industries. The administrative hurdles and expense associated with obtaining work permits, as well as the great importance of short-term, flexible employment strategies in many refugee households, also favor informal employment. In 2025, 93 per cent of employed Syrian refugees lacked a work permit.06

A significant reform effort launched in 2016, the so-called Jordan Compact, achieved limited success. In return for Jordan com­mitting to expanding Syrian refugees’ access to work permits in selected sectors and special economic zones, international donors offered additional funding, including grants and low-interest loans (despite Jordan’s status as a middle-income country) and eco­nomic policy incentives. The latter included simplified EU rules of origin, which enable preferential tariffs for exports to the EU. The Jordan Compact was intended to herald a shift toward economic win-win solutions, and was accompanied by high expectations. While it theoretically expanded access to the labor market, it did little in practice to address the precarious and informal nature of the jobs actually available – not least because it was inadequately adapted to local conditions.

In recent years, the Jordanian government has also begun to tighten regulation of informal employment, for example through stricter labor market oversight. At the same time, the subsidy program for work permits for Syrian refugees – which had been co-funded under the Jordan Compact by donors including the World Bank – expired in July 2024. As a result, the costs of formal employment rose significantly. This increases the incentives for wor­kers and employers to turn to the informal sector.

Meanwhile, efforts to formalize employ­ment have created new financial risks for some refugees. For example, 22 per cent of surveyed Syrian refugees reported having debts to Jordanian institutions, including the Jordanian Social Security Corporation. High contributions – and even higher arrears – can make formal employment unattractive, especially for those with low and unstable incomes.

Economic and social survival strategies

Against the backdrop of precarious work, cash-for-work programs run by humanitarian and development organizations remain important. They provide refugees with short-term income, relatively safe working conditions, and potentially new social and financial opportunities, particularly for women. At the same time, these programs are temporary and rarely lead to secure long-term employment.

In many cases, economic survival relies on a fragile mix of humanitarian aid, pri­vate debt, and support from social networks, with heavy dependence on external assis­tance. Two-thirds of Syrian refugees in Jor­dan live below the poverty line, and many resort to negative coping strategies such as buying food on credit, child labor, or cut­ting back on spending on health and edu­cation. Debt is a central feature of daily life. According to UNHCR data for 2024, nine out of ten refugee households were borrow­ing to meet their basic needs. Declining aid, rising living costs, and regional instability only exacerbate those pressures. Under these conditions, remaining in (or returning to) camps can also represent a survival strategy, because – at least for now – international funding ensures a minimum level of services and infrastructure there. However, 81 per cent of registered refugees live in host communities, preferring greater independence over life in the camps, which offer more comprehensive care at the price of fewer opportunities for social and eco­nomic participation. In many cases, how­ever, these strategies provide only short-term security. The future funding of the camps is uncertain and services have already been reduced; complete closure is a real possibility.

Documents required, but long-term security not on offer

Obtaining Jordanian citizenship, and thus full integration, is not a realistic option for Syrian refugees. The nationality law is re­strictive; naturalization is politically sensi­tive and in practice unattainable for the vast majority.

Nevertheless, Syrian refugees need docu­ments, such as the UNHCR asylum seeker/ refugee certificate and the service card issued by the interior ministry, to prove their legal residence and protection status, and to access everyday services. While these documents are required, for example, to apply for a work permit and to access sub­sidized health care, their holders’ status remains temporary. Furthermore, issues around documentation, in particular regarding birth, marriage, and death certi­ficates, can create additional barriers to proving identity, engaging in paid work, accessing health care, or exercising mobility.

Education: partial integration without continuity

Jordan’s policy of limited participation is also evident in the education sector. Jordan has, with substantial support from inter­national donors, provided Syrian children with free access to primary and secondary education, often through a double-shift system in regular schools, where Syrian students were taught in a second shift in the afternoon. More than 80 per cent of Syrian children attended school during the 2024–25 school year, facilitating partial social inclusion and largely preventing the emergence of a “lost generation.” Often, however, this form of partial integration fails to offer a perspective: Syrian students face significant obstacles in making the transitions to secondary school, vocational training, and higher education, in part due to the associated costs. Those challenges are frequently compounded by classroom over­crowding, reduced teaching hours, lack of support services, and lack of access to schol­arships, vocational training, and regular employment.

Learning from experience

Little progress was made in certain areas facing specific conceptual, political, or technical challenges. In retrospect, sugges­tions for improvement are obvious here.

The first point concerns the language and objectives of the donors’ refugee policies. While the reference to durable solutions remained normatively important, it had very limited impact on the political realities on the ground. Above all, local integration – as a term and a concept – met with decisive rejection by the Jordanian govern­ment. This led to ad hoc interim solutions, but also to compromise terms that obscured the conflicting objectives and invited a hasty interpretation of the interim solutions as progress. Here, a more transparent and honest approach in donors’ goals and inter­ests would have been desirable, in order to promote awareness of problems and to be able to rethink and change their course of action.

Second, the Jordan Compact revealed the limits of interest-based win-win approaches. Although its intention to align the interests of Jordan and the (European) donors was politically innovative and promising, the expectation that work permits, economic incentives, and trade concessions would pro­mote employment, development, and refugee protection proved overambitious. While the Compact did help expand formal access to the labor market, key problems remained unresolved. Syrian workers’ demand for factory jobs – which were not very lucrative for them – remained low, partly because the factories were often remote and many had experience only in agriculture or the service sector. Work permits remained expensive and difficult to obtain. Although the plan to harness the economic potential of Syrian refugees as migrant workers did not work out, the Com­pact remains instructive because it demon­strates the possibility of interest-based com­promises. Achieving the intended employment and protection outcomes would have required action to address structural and cultural barriers, such as those in Jordan’s textile sector and regarding Syrian women’s participation in the labor market. More comprehensive involvement of stakeholders and their expertise could have ensured this.

A third lesson concerns “cash-for-work,” a long-standing humanitarian tool that experi­enced a surge in popularity after the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit. It has been widely used in Jordan, and – unlike in the past – also for development-oriented pur­poses. Its short-term strengths are undisputed: cash-for-work ensures that those in need receive help quickly, while also con­tributing to social cohesion and infrastructure. However, the latter – like employment effects in general – should not be overestimated. If cash-for-work is to achieve more than short-term stabilization, it must be more closely linked to skills training, certification, follow-up opportunities, and regular employment pathways – and ulti­mately render itself obsolete. The tool’s success in combatting poverty also depends significantly on the level of payments. Otherwise, it is useful for responding to humanitarian emergencies, but has limited wider impact.

Fourth, the question of conditionality arises. Even though European and other donors possessed financial leverage over Jordan, which is heavily dependent on external aid, they made only limited use of this to secure more substantial rights for Syrian refugees, opportunities for mobility between Jordan, Syria, and third countries, or longer-term prospects. Even though it remains unclear what concessions the Jor­danian government might have been will­ing to make, the risk of onward migration apparently deterred European donors from any serious attempt to negotiate better prospects for Syrian refugees. In retrospect, it is impossible to say whether greater cour­age would have made a decisive difference. What is clear is that the interim arrangements tied up considerable financial resour­ces without eliminating the fundamental uncertainty surrounding residency status.

Recommendations for Action

What lessons can be drawn for the future work of donors such as Germany and the EU? Durable solutions remain essential when addressing the displacement crisis, even though the political and financial leeway continues to shrink. This makes it all the more important to carefully pri­oritize international support in Jordan.

Basic needs and protection: The German government should help maintain basic provision and protection for refugees to ensure they can live with dignity in Jordan, even if local integration remains blocked. This is all the more important given that the most vulnerable households often find it most difficult to return to Syria, on account of their lack of resources, contacts, and possessions there. Further cuts to support would exacerbate poverty, debt, and negative coping strategies, and increase the risk of involuntary return deci­sions. If refugees leave Jordan not because they see viable prospects in Syria, but because remaining becomes impossible for economic reasons, that risks jeopardizing Syria’s stability.

Return as a process: International donors and aid organizations should sup­port return as a process. Safe and dignified return presupposes reliable information, counseling on legal consequences, and opportunities for formalized “go-and-see” visits and re-entry, especially for households returning in stages. During the return process, protection monitoring and admin­istrative support are crucial. Particular attention should be paid to the protection of female returnees and female-headed households. Upon arrival in Syria, returnees need assistance with legal and property issues as well as support in finding housing and work and accessing basic services. Return assistance should not be limited to logistics and start-up aid, but should serve to prevent further protection risks and displacement. Given the still fragile situa­tion in Syria, the German government should also prioritize support for return from within the region over return from Germany.

Complementary mobility options: In addition to their own resettlement pro­grams (especially for vulnerable refugees), international donors should expand com­plementary mobility options such as trans­national and regional mobility, as well as education and training pathways for refugees.

Opportunities for transnational (labor) mobility between Jordan and Syria should be promoted, including by removing admin­istrative and financial barriers related to work permits and social security debts, or by establishing practical procedures for issuing identity documents.

Existing educational programs for Syrian refugees should be more strongly oriented toward successful educational transitions and regular migration pathways, in order to contribute to transnational mobility (inclu­ding beyond the region). Donors should therefore expand successful efforts in pri­mary education to include secondary, vocational, and tertiary education. In the process, they should remove cost barriers, promote skills development and certification, and facilitate the recognition of quali­fications. By offering scholarships, training and study programs, and work-related mobi­lity programs in Germany and the EU, the German government can help link educa­tional qualifications obtained in Jordan to realistic pathways for further migration and education – in Jordan, Syria, or via regular labor mobility channels in third countries.

Donors should make their financial sup­port – for refugees remaining in Jordan, returning to Syria, or for complementary mobility – conditional on concrete relief from administrative burdens – for example, regarding work permits, social security debts, and re-entry and identity documents. Donors should demand these from the Jordanian government.

Rather than merely managing the limited participation of Syrian refugees, the top priority for Germany and the EU should be to ensure that refugees are provided with real prospects and viable migration pathways – through protection, reliable rights, and options for regular mobility.