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AMMAN — Ahmad is a Syrian refugee in his twenties who arrived from western Syria to Jordan as a teenager. Like many others, he is forced to remain in an irregular employment situation.
“My first work permit was covered by my manager for JD10,” he said. But when it expired, his employer refused to renew it due to the increased cost. As a result, he no longer holds a work permit in Jordan.
Since the end of Jordan’s Compact agreement in 2024, Syrian refugees do not benefit from labour facilities anymore.
Signed at the 2016 London Conference by Jordan and the international community, the treaty aimed to support Jordan following the 2011 Syrian conflict and the resulting influx of asylum seekers. Since then, Jordan has hosted around 1 million Syrian refugees.
The pact granted $1.9 billion to Jordan, reflecting the authorities’ intention to turn the Syrian refugee crisis into a development opportunity.
In exchange for relaxed EU trade regulations and increased exports from industrial zones, Jordan committed to formalising the Syrian workforce by issuing 200,000 work permits annually, including flexible ones allowing job mobility.
The Kingdom also committed to provide education for all Syrian children and training opportunities for workers.
As official reports show, despite Jordan’s efforts to meet the compact targets, development plans have made “little” headway. In fact, the acquisition of work permits did not necessarily guarantee better work conditions for refugees.
Labour restrictions such as access sectors like education or sales and driving licences reduce employment opportunities for Syrian refugees. Also, formal wages are generally set at $366 and may be further reduced by social security contributions paid by refugee workers themselves.
In some cases, obtaining work permits can be counterproductive due to fears of losing refugee benefits.
“We noted that Syrians, even when the work permit cost only JD10, they preferred to work in irregular situations: they were afraid of losing their refugee status and the financial assistance”, said Linda Alkalash, Executive Director of Tamkeen, a Jordanian NGO providing legal aid to more than 10,000 migrant workers.
The issuance of permits has consistently fallen short of the targets outlined in the agreement.
While the cumulated number of work permits distributed to Syrian refugees since 2016 reached 330,554 in May 2022, the yearly number of Syrian workers with a valid work permit has ranged between a minimum of 36,790 in 2016 and a record of 62,195 in 2021.
UNHCR reports that only 17,801 work permits were issued to Syrian refugees between January and March 2025.
“Jordan was disappointed by the compact”, said Jalal Al Husseini, consultant for The European Delegation in Jordan and The United Nations Relief and Works Agency in the Near East (UNRWA).
Regarding what Jordan was pledged, only 15 Jordanian exporting enterprises have benefitted from the EU Relaxed Rules of Origin and obtained export licenses, as reported by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
After signing the compact, there was an improvement in exports to the EU, but in 2023 they fell 6.4 per cent.
“Jordan bet on Syrian refugees’ presence with the country but it didn’t work with the compact”, Husseini said.
The deal has not led to expected investments, as noted by EU’s representatives and when the compact ended, also Jordanian commitment to the Syrian cause increasingly faded away.
The recent political development in Syria and the fall of Bashar Al Assad’s regime in December 2024 add another layer to the picture.
Husseini pointed out that Jordan had already begun shifting its approach to the Syrian crisis before the compact’s close, when Al Assad was still in power.
Back then, some shifts in the diplomatic ties between Syria and the Arab League happened.
“A gradual peace approach where they settled all the issues took place, eventually leading to Syria’s formal readmission into the League in 2023”, Husseini explained.
Jordan also started a process of regularisation with Syria by discussing the refugee question between the two countries, among other subjects.
And when the Syrian leadership collapsed last year, the situation moved on for Jordan, leading the government to start promoting the voluntary return of Syrian refugees.
“In Lebanon it was harsh, in Jordan more soft and polite with the idea of trying to push them back”, Husseini specified.
As at last April, UNHCR records 55,732 Syrian refugees returned already from Jordan since the Al Assad rule fell. What the UN also expects is that an additional 200,000 will return by the end of 2025.
“Now they have a country they can return to”, said Alkalash.
However, the prospect of returning varies among individuals, and having or not a work permit or stable employment in Jordan can significantly impact Syrian refugees’ decisions.
Tamkeen reports that 93.1 per cent of refugees who expressed unwillingness to return to Syria do not currently hold a work permit in Jordan.
“Many Syrians send their families to Syria and stay in Jordan to keep working. In other cases, they return to Syria and leave the family here. Some families return all together”, Al Husseini said.
But, beside the work situation in Jordan, returning or not depends also on the deterioration of living conditions in Syria: Tamkeen highlights fear of economic instability and lack of housing as key concerns for Syrians, as UNHCR reports that 52 per cent of them have had their homes completely destroyed.
Some Syrians not holding any work permit in Jordan, still decide to attempt their return home. “My father told me not to do it because it’s not safe”, Ahmad said. “But family is life.”
“Here I experienced stress for almost all my life because of my irregularity, but I believe I will feel relief soon because I will get back home, inshallah”, Ahmad said.
