This company is helping refugees find jobs

Employers are quick to preach diversity initiatives, but are those initiatives taking into account employees seeking asylum from abroad? 

In 2022, more than 100 million individuals have been displaced worldwide as a result of persecution, conflict, violence or human rights violations, according to the UN Refugee Agency. In an effort to remove barriers to job access, global employment platform Oyster launched Oyster for Refugees, a program connecting employers with skilled talent who have  been forced out of their country. 

The goal, according to Oyster’s co-founder Jack Mardack, was to create a means for companies to hire refugees without the logistical hurdles that get in the way. Oyster will oversee hiring, onboarding, pay and benefits at no cost to the employer.  

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“Some people win the lottery of location and get born into places where they can have the career of their dreams — but some people don't get that,” Mardack says. “Oyster for Refugees is looking at the folks where getting a job is a far away possibility because of their circumstances.”

The program is available in 180 countries currently dealing with high volumes of displaced or refugee talent, including Poland, Turkey, Colombia, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Germany and Bangladesh. Most recently, the platform has worked to place employees involved in the war in Ukraine, all the way back to the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis from 2011. 

The idea is to get workers who’ve been displaced or have forcibly left their countries of origin connected to positions in the countries where they are now. Oyster has also partnered with Niya.ai, an employment platform focused on diversity recruitment, to match employees in need of jobs. 

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“We have solved building the bridge [for refugees], but now we need the people to cross the bridge,” Mardack says. “Naya is our talent partner and their services are specifically focused on connecting talented people who happened to be in a refugee displaced situation.” 

Refugee recruitment efforts don’t just help  displaced employees, they can also help solve for the lack of diversity in companies all around the world. For refugees, a job can be completely transformational, according to Mardack, and provide good outcomes for both employees and the company they work for. 

“When a company is able to show a diversity in its workforce, it means that those systemic forces that had been keeping some people out have been counteracted by that company,” Mardack says. “And more companies need to see that as a triumph unto itself.”