The Venezuelan displacement crisis is among the largest in the world today. Nearly eight million people have fled Venezuela over the past ten years, due to economic collapse, violence, insecurity and political repression. Most have sought refuge in Latin American countries, with Venezuela’s neighbour Colombia absorbing the largest share – nearly three million people.
A significant number of Colombian nationals who previously lived in Venezuela have now also returned home. On top of this, Colombia is home to over seven million internally displaced people (IDP) – one of the highest IDP populations globally.
Colombia’s response to migration from Venezuela has been praised for its progressiveness. This includes a temporary protection programme that grants Venezuelans a ten-year permit, as well as access to formal employment, education, healthcare and financial services. But legal inclusion has not always resulted in economic or social integration. As is so often the case, the reality on the ground is far more complex.
Venezuelans in Colombia are, on average, younger than the Colombian population. Many of them also come with relatively high levels of education and professional experience. They are doctors, teachers, engineers and small business owners. But rather than being absorbed into a labour market that values these skills, the large majority are stuck in the informal economy, where wages and protections are low, and many face vulnerable conditions.
Even ‘skilled’ Venezuelans frequently live hand to mouth, unable to secure reliable work
Drawing on my perspective as a Colombian and as a researcher studying the economics of forced migration and displacement, I’ve followed how even ‘skilled’ Venezuelans frequently live hand to mouth, unable to secure reliable work. This prolonged state of vulnerability in the labour market is not incidental, but rather a product of protracted displacement in a context where informal work practices, discrimination, and state and institutional capacity gaps all intersect.
Impact evaluations of regularisation programmes and other interventions, as well as public opinion research, clearly show that Venezuelans in Colombia face a paradox of inclusion without full integration. In the face of their protracted displacement, rights-based approaches must be complemented by structural reforms to meaningfully change migrants’ lives.
In this context, structural reforms go beyond a single policy tweak and involve a coordinated set of institutional changes. These include streamlining the recognition of Venezuelan diplomas and licences, investing in local job-placement and apprenticeship programmes, creating incentives for employers to hire both migrants and local workers formally, and strengthening municipal labour offices to match skills to demand.
The employment paradox: protected but informal
As climate shocks, authoritarianism, economic collapse and conflict increase the likelihood of sustained displacement around the world, more and more people have found themselves permanently excluded from the formal protections of citizenship and the stability of long-term residence. Displacement has increasingly become less a temporary disruption and more a long-term condition. This is what scholars refer to as “protracted displacement”, and it has become the norm for millions across the globe.
Protracted displacement, especially in the Global South, has produced a new kind of economic subject: legally present but economically precarious; visible but excluded from political participation; skilled but deskilled by circumstance.
Many Venezuelans in Colombia fit this description. Recent research confirms that, even after controlling for education, age and region, Venezuelan migrants are significantly more likely than comparable Colombians to work in the informal sector. Studies find that Venezuelans with tertiary education experience much higher rates of informality and occupational downgrading than equally educated Colombians, with informality rates at or above 70% for Venezuelans compared with about 50% for Colombians with the same educational attainment.
This is not unique to Colombia. Similar patterns emerge in Lebanon and Turkey, where Syrian refugees have been absorbed into low-wage work, and in Bangladesh, where Rohingya refugees are denied access to the formal labour market entirely.
Yet Colombia stands out for the scale of its legal response. The temporary permit programme (Permiso Especial de Permanencia, or PEP), which was replaced with a new policy (Estatuto Temporal de Protección para Migrantes Venezolanos, or ETPV) in 2021, has regularised hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, granting them access to social protection and the right to live and work legally in the country for up to ten years.
These policies are a progressive counterexample to the prevailing trend among many Western states. Rather than doubling down on restrictions, as so many are now doing, Colombia has chosen to provide rights, protections and social inclusion for Venezuelans. Yet there is still work to do. As indicated above, a large majority of displaced Venezuelans remain in informal, unprotected jobs where exploitation is likely.
In a region where institutional capacity and resources are often stretched thin, this is perhaps unsurprising. But understanding this paradox is key to grasping how displacement intersects with economic marginalisation in the Global South.
The limits of regularisation
Several overlapping factors explain this mismatch (i.e. the gap between the relatively high educational and the low-skilled or informal jobs actually occupied). First, similarly to other middle-income countries, Colombia’s labour market is heavily informal. Nearly half of all jobs lack contracts or social protections. Second, there is limited institutional capacity to match skills with demand, accredit qualifications, and connect migrants to formal employment.
Third, discrimination and distrust of foreigners persist. Venezuelans are often seen as competitors for scarce resources or as bearers of insecurity, making employers reluctant to hire them. Fourth, while the coverage has been extensive, not all Venezuelans can access the protection programme as they are not able to meet the bureaucratic requirements. Fifth, it may be that, given the situation of temporariness faced by Venezuelans, urgent needs and liquidity constraints make it difficult to hold out for a better job.
Regularisation, while important, does not alone generate structural change in labour outcomes
Regularisation – the process of obtaining official documents in a migrant’s host country – is an important step in gaining protections as a displaced person. Researchers have shown that migrants regularised under Colombia’s PEP programme have, on average, experienced a 22% increase in income, a 48% increase in per capita consumption, and significant improvements in wellbeing.
But – and this is crucial – these gains were primarily driven by improved access to social protection systems, financial services, and subsidised healthcare. They were not a result of mass transitions into the formal labour market. Among those regularised, only a modest increase in labour formalisation was observed, and most migrants continued to work in low-productivity, informal occupations.
This suggests that regularisation, while important, does not alone generate structural change in labour outcomes. Without complementary policies – such as credential recognition, job placement programmes, financial incentives, and employer incentives – the potential of skilled migrants in the job market remains largely untapped.
Policy preferences and public opinion
Public attitudes also shape the landscape into which migrants are integrated. In a research project I co-led in 2021, we assessed over 2,000 Colombian citizens’ preferences across six dimensions of migration policy: labour market access, location restrictions, healthcare access, family reunification, caps on arrivals, and residency duration.
The findings are nuanced. While Colombians broadly support access to healthcare and mobility for displaced Venezuelans, there is ambivalence about labour market participation, and strong support for numerical caps.
It appears that policy preferences are mediated by values. Those who prioritise economic concerns or view Venezuelan migration as an economic (rather than humanitarian) issue tend to support more restrictive policies. Conversely, those with stronger humanitarian values, or with direct social contact with Venezuelans, are more likely to support inclusionary measures.
This is consistent with evidence produced by other scholars. One team showed in 2024 that even brief exposure to perspective-changing interventions, such as watching a documentary or playing a digital simulation, can increase altruism, empathy, and willingness to support migrants. Video-based intervention was found to be highly effective and scalable, making it a particularly practical avenue for shifting public opinion.
Ultimately, while regularisation and service access can lay the groundwork for socioeconomic integration, the durability of these gains depends on ongoing public consent. Policies that neglect public attitudes risk creating formal inclusion without social acceptance. In contrast, promoting interventions that foster empathy and reduce misperceptions offers a promising path to bridge this gap. But more research is needed in this area, as it remains unclear whether these interventions produce long-lasting changes in perspectives and values.
Rethinking inclusion from the ground up
If the goal is not simply to host migrants but to include them meaningfully in society, then the Colombian case offers sobering lessons.
Regularisation is necessary but not sufficient. Skills and motivation are present in the displaced population, but under-leveraged. This is to the detriment of both displaced people and host communities.
Public opinion is malleable but must be actively engaged. Interventions in this area must promote inclusivity, rather than merely a conditional acceptance of certain groups of migrants. Such PR interventions must furthermore be matched with concrete pathways into high-skilled, formal work.
Finally, and most importantly, economic structures, not just legal frameworks, must be changed. This includes reducing the costs of formal hiring, expanding social-security coverage to informal workers, and investing in sectors with higher productivity and training pipelines so both Colombians and Venezuelans can transition into stable, formal employment. It also requires strengthening local labour institutions and coordination across ministries to match skills with demand.
Looking ahead, displacement from Venezuela is likely to remain protracted. Persistent political instability and economic collapse in Venezuela make large-scale return improbable, while Colombia’s own fiscal and institutional constraints limit the speed of integration. This means Venezuelans will continue to form a long-term resident population, making structural reforms and sustained public engagement all the more urgent.
Otherwise, even the most skilled migrants will remain trapped in cycles of precarity, symbolic inclusion, and structural invisibility.
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Isabel Ruiz is Associate Professor of Political Economy at the University of Oxford, Fellow in Economics at Harris Manchester College, and Adjunct Faculty at the Blavatnik School of Government. She is Associate Editor of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy and co-convenor of the Economics of Forced Migration Project.
