Introduction: According to the State Secretariat for Migration, 131,605 people in Switzerland are currently in the asylum process. In this context, professional and social integration stands as a major challenge for both newcomers and the resettlement country. Vocational education and training (VET) offers a viable spathway for sustainable labor market integration. However, refugees often face significant barriers to accessing and completing VET programs. To address this issue, the Swiss Federal Council launched the pre-apprenticeship for integration program (PAI) in 2018 to support and prepare refugees for entry into VET.
Purpose: In this study, we aimed to explore workplace characteristics during the PAI by investigating trainers' and PAI trainees' perceptions of affordances-that is, the social and structural resources provided in the workplace-and PAI trainees' commitment, referring to their individual prerequisites for utilizing these affordances.
Method: We conducted a qualitative study, interviewing three former PAI trainees with refugee backgrounds and their in-company trainers in the fields of plumbing, commerce, and horticulture. A hybrid approach combining deductive and inductive analyses was used to perform a thematic analysis.
Results: The findings indicate that the learning environments provided strong support to PAI trainees, reflecting the trainers' active involvement in promoting their integration within both the team and the organization. For their part, PAI trainees reported a high level of commitment, demonstrating motivation, interest, and initiative. However, external factors-such as family or administrative issues related to temporary residence permits-emerged as barriers that hindered their ability to fully concentrate on their training.
Conclusion: Our study emphasizes that the PAI program fosters refugees' learning journeys and support their integration into the Swiss VET system. However, it also highlights the pivotal role-and power-of trainers, as well as the contextual factors that can hinder their journeys.