As of April 2024, Austria is sheltering close to 85,000 Ukrainians displaced by the Russian war in Ukraine, two-thirds of whom are women. While this is a small fraction of the six million displaced Ukrainians globally, for Austria, this led to a seven-fold increase in its’ Ukrainian-born population as compared to the pre-war period, 0.8% increase in Austria’s total population and over 1% increase in its working age population.

Ukrainians tend to be younger than the Austrian population and, contrary to popular belief, have fewer dependents on average. 47% of the working-age Ukrainians live in Vienna, where there are more than 5 working-age Ukrainians for every Ukrainian that is 14 years of age or younger. This makes Vienna a city particularly suited for an intervention that matches displaced Ukrainians with companies.

The majority of Ukrainians are highly educated (over 70%) but relatively few are employed- less than 30% of the working age Ukrainians. What is more, for almost 70% of women, the employment does not correspond to their qualifications.
While the employment situation has improved over time, the scale of the displacement and existing barriers to entry are resulting in a situation where the human capital of the majority of displaced Ukrainians remains untapped. While this is a lamentable development by all accounts, it also indicates that the pool of qualified candidates for our policy intervention is large.

The barriers to labor market integration are many, and thus far we only have a partial understanding of them. For one, we observe that the exit rate of Ukrainians (without return) is 22%, suggesting that many do not stay in Austria long enough to make it a home. Second, only 10% report being fluent in German, a job requirement for most highly skilled occupations in Austria. Moreover, over 200 regulated professions (medical, legal, educational, engineering and technical, among others) present the need for professional accreditation, a process that can take anywhere between several months to a few years. Moreover, the fear of losing the support offered by the Basic Care system (Grundversorgung) seems to be discouraging Ukrainians to register with the Public Employment Service and seek formal paid jobs. A large share of the Ukrainian displaced population lives under severe psychological distress, which, studies show, is depressing individual’s ability and readiness to seek employment. For the large population of mothers with children, there is an additional set of barriers – they need jobs that allow for short commutes and flexible working hours. The levels of psychological distress are particularly high within this group.

If a policy intervention that matches the displaced with jobs in Austria would take place in the coming one or two years, based on what we found, we expect a strong demand for jobs by Ukrainians in Austria. As places with the largest number and density of working-age Ukrainians, Vienna and Graz are particularly well suited for such an intervention. Some of the barriers to entry can be tackled directly by our intervention, including German language training in job-relevant areas of
professional communication, psychological counseling, and financial help with private childcare.