Cash for Work (CFW)

As a way to help refugees generate an income, Cash-for-Work schemes are support programs that are offered by NGOs in refugees host communities to help refugees in making an income through working for several projects in a permitted way, either those owned by the NGOs or their partners. Many not-for-profit organisations are offering several programs in Jordan to assist both vulnerable Jordanian citizens and refugees, mainly Syrian refugees in generating income (Food Security Cluster, 2019).

However, many organisationsdon’t provide cash in exchange for certain activities, but instead, they would offer other services, such as basic items, training programs, or even reimbursement for transportation in case the project is located outside the camps.

Therefore, it was agreed to change the terminology from CFW to Incentive-based Volunteering Schemes (IBVs) by organisations in Jordan. These schemes have helped refugees inside the camps who were facing difficulties in leaving the camps and finding formal work opportunities. In addition, as some of those residing inside the camps struggled with the lack of personal documentation, these schemes permitted them to work as volunteers in return for cash with NGOs, at highly skilled, skilled, and unskilled levels (UNHCR, 2020d). It’s worth mentioning that Syrian refugees who live inside the camps are entitled to humanitarian services, assistance, and accommodation, however, these initiatives aim more to make the refugees independent and feel valuable, with almost 17%

of the total refugees' population in Jordan, are living inside the camps as of January 2021 (UNHCR, 2021c).

Two of the participating organisations were offering these programs to a wide range of beneficiaries who resided within the Syrian camps in Jordan. While these jobs didn’t mean to make profits and were only offered for a humanitarian purpose, all organisations that offered such services had agreed to adhere to fixed incentive rates and job rotation periods for their beneficiaries, to avoid any kind of competition. The fixed rates are different according to the job levels (G. Al-Qudah, personal communication, September 17, 2020):

- Semi-skilled: not requiring specialized or technical skills, which is implemented through a 3-month training with rotation. The incentive rate is JOD1 per hour ($1.41). Examples: trainees of the next levels, cleaners, and guards.

- Skilled: requiring minimal skills, which is implemented through 3 – 6 months production workshop. The incentive rate is JOD1.5 per hour ($2.12). Examples:

Tailoring or hairdressing trainees.

- Highly skilled: requiring specific high-level skills, which is contracted up to one year. The incentive rate is JOD2 ($2.82). Examples: Office assistants, carpenters, medical assistants, and storekeepers.

- Technical: requiring specific high-level skills, with an unspecific contractual period, but preferably with rotation every two years. The incentive rate is JOD2.5 ($3.53). Examples: Teachers, supervisors, and engineers.

Working hours were limited to 6 hours per day, and if extra work was requested it should be compensated as per the above rates. In addition, all types of leaves are not mandatorily paid, as this is according to each organisation’s policy. Both participating organisations confirmed that they had given paid annual, maternity, breastfeeding (one-hour per day for one year), and sick leaves, since they couldn’t offer additional incentives than the fixed rates, they believed that these were the extra allowances with which they could differentiate and compensate their employees with.

Back to H5 which states that: Working opportunities of refugees are limited but possible to increase as the Jordanian labour market can absorb more of them.

It has been noticeable that refugees’ opportunities are limited to those that are opened to non-Jordanians of any nationality. Therefore, if the current regulations changed to include more refugees than other nationalities while maintaining the access of Jordanian citizens to the job market untouched, more refugees would be able to have jobs. This can be seen as in 2019 alone, when 348,736 opportunities were given to non-Jordanians, with a dominance of Egyptian workforce in the market, while Syrians, Yemenis and Iraqis all together formed only 12.8%, with a total of 44,820 (numbers were taken from table number 5, page 18). Palestinian refugees were excluded as there is no accurate number of their share within the formal job market, however, they would be included to those under “Rest of Arabic countries”, which means less than 2,729 in 2019 according to table 5 (Labour Market Studies Unit, 2020).

These low percentages contradict the share of refugees from the non-Jordanians’

population as could be seen in figure 7.

Accordingly, H5 is true, since the Jordanian job market already absorbed high numbers of foreign workforce, more opportunities can be given to refugees instead of importing.

Figure 7. Non-Jordanians’ population as projected by the Department of Statistics for 2020, added to the UNHCR & UNRWA data

Source: (Department of Statistics, 2020a; UNHCR, 2021b, 2021d, 2021c; UNRWA, 2018) Syrian R: The registered refugees according to UNHCR.

20%

23%

16% 5%

3%

19%

14%

Syrians R Syrians NR Palestinians R Palestinians NR

Refugees - Others R Egyptians Other Foreigners

Syrian NR: non-registered Syrians according to the Department of Statistics counts.

Palestinians R: The registered refugees according to UNRWA.

Palestinians NR: non-registered Palestinians according to the Department of Statistics counts.

Refugees – Others R: the rest of registered refugees according to UNHCR (e.g. Iraqis and Yemenis)