Occupational Downgrading, Job Tasks, and the Return Intentions of the Ukrainian Refugees in Poland – journal publication for CESifo

After Russia invaded Ukraine, Poland took in more than one million war refugees and provided them with quick access to the labour market. The employment rate of Ukrainian refugees in Poland exceeds 60% and is much higher than in Western European countries. However, most found low-skilled jobs and about 40% declared that they were working below their skill level. In our article (Lewandowski et al., 2025), we examine the career trajectories of Ukrainian war refugees, quantify changes in the routine task intensity (RTI) of their jobs before and after forced migration, and examine how these labour market experiences in Poland translate into plans to return to Ukraine. We use data from surveys conducted in 2022 and 2023 in cooperation with the Centre for Migration Research at the University of Warsaw and the Institute for Structural Research.

Three key findings emerge from our study. Firstly, an unprecedented 20% of employed Ukrainian war refugees continue to work in the same positions they held in Ukraine. Secondly, professional demotion is a common phenomenon affecting 30% of people who have found a new job in Poland. Demotion particularly affects people who have worked in managerial, specialist or technical positions in Ukraine. In addition to professional downgrading, refugees also experience a significant routinisation of their tasks, i.e. an increase in the intensity of simple and repetitive tasks at work. For those who have moved to lower-skilled jobs, the increase in RTI is significant. The scale of this increase is comparable to the difference in RTI between managerial and office jobs. It is worth emphasising that even refugees who managed to remain in their original occupational category experienced a noticeable increase in RTI.

Thirdly, the degradation of tasks is closely related to the growing desire among Ukrainian refugees to return to Ukraine, especially among those who initially intended to stay in Poland. The more routine the work of refugees in Poland is compared to their work in Ukraine, the more likely it is that people who did not initially plan to return to Ukraine will change their plans a year later and intend to return to their homeland.

Challenges related to the integration of Ukrainian refugees into the labour market in Poland, such as professional downgrading and underutilisation of skills, highlight the risks associated with uneven integration frameworks in EU member states. Coordinated EU policy could remedy these differences by facilitating the recognition of qualifications, supporting jobs tailored to skills and standardising access to integration services such as language training.

Complete version of the article → here