Refugees’ perspectives toward the Extra Service jobs : A case study about how refugees view their participation within the Extra Service job

This thesis aims to investigate the refugees' experiences when it comes to their participation within the Extra Service job; which is the subsidized job that the Public Employment Service offers to the refugees as part of their integration process. This thesis investigates the thoughts, perspectives, and experiences of the refugees involved in the Extra Service jobs based on conducting fifteen semi-structured interviews. The research findings indicate that the Extra Service job had a positive impact on many refugees, as they used their refugees' agency to gain new human capital, however, this thesis suggests that being involved in such a subsidized job could lead to imprisoning the refugees within the low ranked jobs in the labor market. Throughout this thesis, Human Capital Theory, Segmented Dual Labor Market Theory, and the refugees' agency were used as the theoretical background of the thesis. The thesis contributes to understanding the subjective side of integration in addition to enriching the literature of subsidized jobs when they are to be used for the sake of the refugees' integration. Keywords: Extra Service job, subsidized job, refugee agency, human capital, dual labor market, secondary segment.