IKEA announces new commitments to support integration of refugees around the world

Ingka Group, the largest IKEA retailer, is launching a new commitment to:

• Increase the employability of an additional 3,000 refugees and asylum seekers by the end of 2027.
• IKEA Social Entrepreneurship along with Cisco Foundation and implementation partner NESsT, support an initiative that aims to create 3,000 long-term jobs that positively impact over 5,000 refugees and migrants in Poland and Romania.
• Inter IKEA Group continues its partnership with Jordan River Foundation, creating long term employment for 400 refugee women and local female artisans and co-creating products for IKEA.

The IKEA Foundation surpassed its commitment to spend 100 million over five years and continues to fund projects that build economic self-reliance amongst refugees and their host communities.According to the latest UNHCR estimations, by the end of September 2023, 114 million people around the world have been forced to flee their homes, with last year seeing the biggest jump in the number of forcibly displaced people ever. IKEA believes that all people deserve respect, dignity, and opportunities.

Refugee Workforce Inclusion at IKEA Australia 

In partnership with refugee employment specialists Community Corporate, our pilot employment program for refugees and asylum seekers has recently evolved to become a permanent pillar of recruitment called Refugee Workforce Inclusion. 

The pilot program began in 2020 as eight-week paid work placements, designed to support refugees and asylum seekers to remove barriers to employment in Australia, as well as provide an important connection into the community to help participants reach their full potential in their new home. 

Now IKEA Australia provides refugees and asylum seekers from all backgrounds with secure, ongoing employment opportunities.

Harriet Pope, Refugee Workforce Inclusion Leader, said, “185 remarkable participants have been a part of this program in our IKEA stores and warehouses so far, sharing their skills, knowledge, diverse cultural backgrounds and languages with our co-workers and customers. Most are still with IKEA today.”

1 in 73 - over 110 million people – are now forcibly displaced around the world.

“Each and every co-worker who has joined IKEA as part of our refugee employment program has made IKEA better. Their skills, knowledge, motivation, adaptability, cultural and linguistic diversity has enhanced our business, and we encourage other employers to take action and support refugee integration and realise the many and varied mutual benefits,” said Pope.

For more information go to Creating positive social impact - IKEA

IKEA Social Entrepreneurship in partnership in a Refugee Employment Initiative

IKEA Social Entrepreneurship supports social entrepreneurs to create social impact inside and beyond the IKEA value chain. Through a combination of capacity-building accelerator programmes, impact investments and social business partnerships, it aims to improve livelihoods and create income opportunities for people from vulnerable and marginalised groups. 

“IKEA Social Entrepreneurship has, in collaboration with our partner NESsT and the Cisco Foundation, launched the NESsT Refugee Employment Initiative. This joint effort aims to support fifteen enterprises already working or intending to engage with refugees and migrants in Poland and Romania. The overarching goal is to significantly enhance the prospects and lives of refugees and migrants through sustainable employment and support services generating 3,000 job opportunities and positively impacting the lives of 5,000 refugees and migrants”, says Åsa Skogström, CEO of IKEA Social Entrepreneurship.

Inter IKEA Group and Jordan River Foundation

In 2017 Inter IKEA Group started working together with Jordan River Foundation (JRF). Today, more than 370 refugees and Jordanian women work on the co-creation and production of IKEA textile products. Over the past five years, the partnership has proven to be successful in both economic empowerment and a change model to achieve long-lasting integration. 

IKEA now renews the commitment, aiming for employment of 400 women, refugees and local Jordanians by 2027, with an increased effort in youth skills training and employment in the collaboration.

IKEA Foundation

In 2019, the IKEA Foundation committed EUR 100 million to empower refugees to develop pathways towards economic self-reliance. The Foundation surpassed its commitment and is currently implementing multiyear projects that serve more than 70,000 refugees and their host communities in East Africa. The Foundation’s projects also benefit 350,000 individuals in the refugee and host community ecosystem indirectly. 

Since 2009 the IKEA Foundation has granted more than EUR 300 million towards transformative refugee livelihoods programmes. Per Heggenes, CEO of IKEA Foundation: “If refugees are given the opportunity, we have seen how their extraordinary talent and drive can provide the growth and development of a host community. When refugees and host community work together to build the economy, we can achieve self-reliance for everyone. It is time for us to come together and invest in these communities so we can empower refugees to be a catalyst for positive social and economic transformation.”