Piloting Job-Matching for the Inclusion of Unaccompanied Migrant Youth in Spain

Unaccompanied migrant youth are among the most vulnerable populations in Europe. In Spain, they arrive without their families, enter the child protection system, and must leave state care at age 18. The number of unaccompanied minors and recently emancipated youth aged 16 to 23 holding residence permits in Spain has risen sharply in recent years. On leaving care, many face homelessness, legal insecurity, and exclusion from formal employment, just as they lose the institutional support that sustained them as minors.

Because general youth policies rarely account for their specific needs, these young people often remain outside mainstream services and job programs. Their transition into adulthood is further constrained by unrecognized foreign credentials, thin professional and social networks, precarious legal status, language barriers, and discrimination. NGOs offer training and job-readiness support, but their reach is limited, and no rigorous causal evidence exists on what helps unaccompanied migrant youth find and keep stable work.

This pilot, funded by J-PAL’s European Social Inclusion Initiative and carried out with Save the Children Spain, lays the groundwork for a future randomized controlled trial of a job-matching program designed to connect unaccompanied migrant youth with employers. It builds on an earlier qualitative study the team conducted under J-PAL’s Displaced Livelihoods Initiative, which identified the main barriers these youth face.  

The full program the team ultimately hopes to test would combine job-readiness training and mentoring for youth; support for employers, including intercultural mediation and administrative and legal assistance, to lower the perceived risks of hiring; targeted matching of young people to firms in sectors with stable labor; and follow-up after placement to help youth keep their jobs and build a sense of belonging.

During the pilot, the team will also run a survey collecting data on UMY background, skills, employment, aspirations, and well-being, and test phone and digital methods for tracking a highly mobile population over time. In parallel, it will survey firms to gauge their willingness to take part in a randomized hiring scheme and document the conditions under which they would participate and pilot a small-scale matching protocol.