CLC’s team, led by Ioannis Sakellarios, BSc International and European Studies, University of Piraeus, mentored and supervised our students, George Frangos, Nefeli Stavrou, Manos Aivatoglou, Apostolos Karaiskos, Nikolas Grouits, and Ioanna Tousimi to carry out a research project on the implementation of refugees in the EU’s labor market and how businesses used this development as a new strategic marketing plan.
This paper examined the European Union’s deep-seated structural challenges that are constraining its long-term economic growth and competitiveness. In particular, we dive into refugee integration into the workforce, which is increasingly viewed both as a humanitarian gesture and as a potential economic strategy to bolster labor supply, enhance innovation, and address labor-market gaps. However, this is not the only way in which the influx of refugees affects the EU’s economic and business outlook; rather, we argue that businesses are increasingly more prone to employ refugees for an additional reason: that is, a renewed effort to appeal to evolving social standards, thus positioning refugee integration as a showcase of rising CSR and ESG awareness.
