Blog post by Koushiik Kumar, National Law School Of India University
Introduction
Nearly 7.71 million Venezuelans have fled their country in recent years, making it one of the largest displacement crises in the world. As of mid-2024, Peru hosted roughly 1.66 million Venezuelans (over one million in Lima alone), making it the Western Hemisphere’s second-largest host after Colombia. Despite this mass influx, the country faces a paradox as, on paper, its refugee and migration laws grant broad work rights and protections, yet in practice Venezuelan migrants encounter overwhelming obstacles to formal employment. This paper contends that a profound disconnect exists between Peru’s progressive legal commitments and the de facto reality, driven by administrative paralysis, shifting immigration policies, and stringent credential rules. As a result, a highly skilled and motivated workforce is largely confined to the informal sector, impacting both human dignity and economic potential. To substantiate this thesis, the analysis proceeds in two parts. Part I surveys the Venezuelan refugee situation in Peru – i.e. its migratory waves, demographic profile, and the domestic asylum/migration regime – highlighting gaps between law and practice. Part II then focuses on the right to work, examining the de jure entitlements that exist and detailing the systemic de facto barriers that undermine them, before drawing on comparative lessons and concluding with policy recommendations.
Part I: The Venezuelan Refugee Situation in Peru
Migration Flows, Statistics and Demographics
Venezuela’s population outflows have unfolded in waves over the past quarter-century. The first large outflows (1999-2009) were often political exiles and professionals; a second wave (2012-2015) brought a more socioeconomically diverse group as shortages and repression worsened. Since about 2015, a humanitarian crisis (marked by hyperinflation, food and medicine scarcity, and violence) has driven millions from every background to flee. Peru’s Venezuelan population exploded accordingly, from under 10,000 in 2016, arrivals surged past half a million by 2018. By 2024, Peru hosted roughly 1.66 million Venezuelans, nearly one million of whom live in Lima, which is the largest urban concentration of Venezuelan migrants worldwide. Over half a million of these individuals were registered as asylum seekers in mid-2024, which further reflects an acute backlog in processing.
This refugee population is predominantly young and economically active, with approximately 57% between 20 and 49 years old, and 82% are of working age. Significantly, they are more educated on average than the Peruvian host population. About 31% hold university degrees versus 21% of natives. In other words, Peru has absorbed a substantial human-capital influx. Economic data demonstrate that Venezuelan migrants make significant contributions to Peru’s economy, but statistics alone mask the mismatch between skills and opportunity. A disproportionate share of educated professionals, like engineers, teachers, and doctors, find themselves underemployed in informal or low-wage work. The consequence is a structural form of “brain waste” where the economy receives the benefit of labor, but not the higher-value returns that properly credentialed and legally employed workers would generate. Geographically, most Venezuelans in Peru live in cities, possibly reflecting both entry points and urban labor demand.
These demographics suggest a potentially large positive impact on Peru’s growth if migrants can work legally and productively. Yet as we will see in the later sections of this paper, turning this potential into reality has proven enormously difficult.
Peru’s Legal and Institutional Framework for Refugees
Peru’s refugee and migration regime is, on its face, quite robust. The country is a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention (and 1967 Protocol) and has incorporated the broad Cartagena Declaration definition of refugees (which covers those fleeing generalized violence or massive rights violations) into its law. Domestically, Law No. 27891 (2002), the Refugee Law, created the Special Commission for Refugees (CEPR) as the national asylum adjudicator and codified a clear refugee status determination (RSD) procedure with classic protections (like non-refoulement). Likewise, the 2017 Migration Law (Decreto Legislativo 1350) modernised Peru’s immigration code and extended equal rights and labor protections to all migrants, regardless of status. In short, Peru’s statutes establish a de jure right to work, i.e. asylum seekers and refugees are legally entitled to enter the formal labor market. For example, Law 27891 explicitly provides asylum applicants with a “Carnet de Solicitante de Refugio” that authorizes them to work from the moment they apply. Similarly, the PTP (Permiso Temporal de Permanencia) and later CPP (Carné de Permiso Temporal) programs were explicitly defined to allow holders to engage in paid, formal employment.[1] In principle, then, the multi-layered legal framework affirms that migrants should have unhindered access to jobs and labour rights.
Despite this progressive-seeming stance, multiple implementation gaps have opened, creating a discrepancy between theory and practice. Initially, the Peruvian government adopted an open-door stance. In 2018 it issued hundreds of thousands of Special Stay Permits (PTPs) to regularize Venezuelans’ status. However, by late 2018 the policy shifted dramatically. New administrations imposed onerous visa requirements and abruptly halted PTP issuance. Many migrants simply could not procure the needed documents for the restrictive humanitarian visa, effectively forcing them to enter ‘by irregular channels’. In other words, policy changes manufactured an undocumented population. Later ‘regularisation’ drives (like the CPP) were limited in scope and duration, treating legal status as a temporary privilege rather than a stable right.
The most critical gap, however, lies within the asylum system. Though Law 27891 mandates a 60-day decision period, in reality Peru’s asylum bodies are overwhelmed. By mid-2024, some 508,488 Venezuelan asylum applications were pending. CEPR remains severely under-resourced, and applicants often wait years for their Carnet de Solicitante (work permit) to be issued. In practice, this administrative paralysis means the formal right to work is effectively suspended for the vast majority, and thousands of asylum seekers struggle without documentation, unable to legally obtain jobs. UNHCR notes that roughly one-third of Venezuelans in Peru live in monetary poverty (10% in extreme poverty), in part due to their inability to generate income legally. As a result, many face acute vulnerabilities, relying on negative coping strategies like child labor, exploitation, and begging.
In sum, well-intentioned laws have been undermined by a mix of restrictive policies, capacity shortfalls, and bureaucratic standstill. A mismatch has emerged between the promise of protection and the reality of exclusion.
The Venezuelan displacement has strained not only labour markets but also the wider set of social rights Peru is formally obliged to guarantee. Peru’s 2002 Refugee Law (Law No. 27891) incorporates the country’s obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention, the 1967 Protocol, and the Cartagena Declaration into domestic law, while the 2017 Migration Law (Decreto Legislativo No. 1350) extends equal legal protections and rights, including access to education, healthcare, and work, to all migrants regardless of status. In practice, however, access to health, education, and social protection mirrors the same gap observed with the right to work – broad de jure guarantees, but uneven and often exclusionary implementation.
Education presents a clear example. Under Peruvian law, all children – regardless of citizenship status – have the right to free primary and secondary schooling. Officially, Venezuelan children may enrol in public schools even without complete documentation. However, studies indicate that bureaucratic hurdles, lack of available school slots, and discrimination have excluded thousands from classrooms. Families often struggle to produce apostilled certificates or transcripts from Venezuela, which are difficult or impossible to obtain given the collapse of state institutions there. As a result, many Venezuelan children face disruptions in schooling, learning loss, and heightened risk of child labor. UNHCR reports that enrolment rates for Venezuelan minors in Peru lag significantly behind those of Peruvian children, which shows the implementation gap between law and reality.
Access to healthcare is similar. In theory, migrants have the same right to emergency and primary health services as nationals, and specific initiatives during COVID-19 temporarily expanded access for undocumented Venezuelans. In practice, however, most lack affiliation with Peru’s public insurance schemes (SIS or EsSalud), leaving them to pay on their own or rely on overstretched NGOs. High rates of informal employment, which typically exclude workers from social insurance, compound this exclusion. Consequently, Venezuelans in Peru report limited access to routine care, especially for chronic conditions, reproductive health, and mental health services, even though international agencies emphasize that barriers to healthcare undermine both migrant well-being and public health goals.
The housing situation adds yet another layer of vulnerability. With rental markets often requiring formalities (like guarantors and legal documentation), Venezuelan families are disproportionately pushed into overcrowded, precarious housing in informal settlements or peripheral neighborhoods of Lima and northern cities. UNHCR has flagged that housing insecurity correlates with heightened protection risks, including gender-based violence and child exploitation. These conditions also intersect with barriers to work, as without a stable address or utilities, migrants struggle to meet employers’ basic requirements for formal hiring.
Taken together, these patterns show that the challenges facing Venezuelan migrants in Peru are systemic and interconnected. Employment barriers cannot be understood in isolation, as gaps in education, health, and housing feed directly into economic exclusion, while the lack of work opportunities deepens poverty and blocks access to services. A holistic account of the refugee situation therefore underscores that realizing the right to work depends on reforms across multiple domains.
Part II: The Right to Work For Venezuelan Migrants in Peru
The Paradox of Potential: A Skilled Workforce in Limbo
The failures of Peru’s protection regime become most evident when considering the right to work. The refugee/migrant population is young, educated, and largely eager to work, which are characteristics that could translate into a substantial economic dividend for Peru. However, this potential is undercut by the very obstacles noted above. In fact, economists project that with full formal integration, Venezuelans could contribute up to US$797 million per year to Peru’s economy.[2] A recent IOM analysis estimates that Venezuelan migrants already inject about US$530 million into Peru’s economy in 2024 (roughly 1.35% of national tax revenue). The study further notes that virtually all of migrants’ spending remains in Peru (96% of their income), underscoring that their labor primarily stimulates local markets. Despite these positive signals, the net effect of the barriers below is to relegate most Venezuelan workers to the informal economy, where skills are wasted and exploitation thrives.
The De Jure Right to Work
As sketched out above, Peru’s laws on paper ensure a right to employment. Law 27891 explicitly states that asylum seekers may legally work upon registering, via the Carné de Solicitante. Similarly, Decreto Legislativo 1350 (2017) and successive temporary residency programs formally grant all documented Venezuelans equal labor rights. This architecture was expressly designed to allow refugees and other migrants to enter the formal labor market and access the same protections as Peruvian citizens. In doctrine, therefore, Peru provides clear legal pathways to formal work for the Venezuelan population.
The De Facto Reality: Systematic Barriers to Formal Employment
In reality, however, that de jure right is systematically undermined by an array of intertwined barriers. The formal labor market has become the exception, not the rule, for migrants; most end up in informal, unstable jobs. Multiple studies concur: around 80% of Venezuelan workers in Peru have no formal contract, compared to lower rates such as 60% informality among comparable Peruvian workers. The following subsections detail the main factors creating this reality.
The Administrative Morass: Overwhelmed Asylum System
The collapse of the asylum system is the single biggest administrative hurdle. In theory, asylum claims should be resolved in two months. In practice, asylum seekers often wait years to receive the Carné de Solicitante that would enable legal employment. Empirical reports confirm that the Carnet is ‘often not issued for years’ due to backlogs. During this limbo, migrants cannot legally formalise any job, effectively freezing their “right” to work. The bottleneck is self-evident in the numbers: over half a million Venezuelans are recorded as pending asylum applicants in Peru, signalling a protracted denial of legal status. This regulatory cul-de-sac forces many to fend for themselves outside the system, undermining the purpose of the laws and leaving the majority of refugees in a tenuous gray zone.
Policy-induced Irregularity
A related problem has been Peru’s volatile immigration policy, which has manufactured irregularity. After the 2018 regularization program ended abruptly, strict new visa rules were imposed that the desperate could not meet. Migrants thus resorted to irregular border crossings, often organized by smugglers. By doing so, they immediately forfeit any claim to legal residency and are barred from formal work. In effect, Peru’s policy pivot created an undocumented class by design, converting what should have been a humanitarian welcome into a trap that channelled thousands into the informal sector as soon as they arrived.
The Vicious Cycle of Informality and Exploitation
Once migrants fall into informality, a vicious cycle sets in. Lacking any official permit, Venezuelans are absorbed into Peru’s large underground labor market, where labor standards are unenforced. Available data attest to this: roughly 88.5% of salaried Venezuelan workers have no formal contract, and around 80% work entirely informally. These conditions give a very possible ground to severe labor abuses. Migrant workers routinely earn far below the legal minimum wage, are forced into excessive hours (often 50–60 per week), and lack any social or legal protections. Women are hit hardest: the gender pay gap is ~ 113 $ which is significant. Female migrants also suffer a much higher unemployment rate than males. Informal employment also means lost tax and social contributions for Peru. Yet studies underscore that these migrants are willing earners: most hold jobs (about 81% of working-age Venezuelans are employed), and nearly half have higher education qualifications. The fact that so few jobs are formal highlights the structural dysfunction of the current system.
For all these reasons, most analysts describe Venezuelans’ situation in Peru as one of “brain waste” where highly skilled people work low-quality, low-paying jobs. This phenomenon is not unique to Peru but is a well-documented outcome of forcing migrants into informality. Critically, studies show the returns to education for Venezuelans drop sharply relative to natives once in the informal sector, and that the informality gap is even higher among the highly educated. In other words, a Venezuelan doctor or engineer is far more likely to end up working on the black market than his Peruvian counterpart, largely because of lost papers and credential barriers.
Discrimination and Xenophobia
Compounding these obstacles is a strong climate of xenophobia. Surveys find that roughly one-third of Venezuelan migrants in Peru have experienced discrimination – the highest incidence recorded among host countries in recent studies. Media and political rhetoric often scapegoat migrants for social ills, painting them as criminals or burdens. Such stigma discourages formal employers from hiring foreigners (even those legally entitled to work) and can push migrants to avoid official channels altogether. In this way, xenophobia acts as a social barrier to economic integration. It not only hinders migrants’ job searches, but also sows fear that drives them further into the shadows.
The Professional’s Dilemma
Even Venezuelans who clear documentation hurdles face a second wall: foreign credential recognition. Peru’s higher education regulator, SUNEDU, must first validate any overseas degree. This requires migrants to obtain an apostilled diploma and pay steep fees (over S/.1188, roughly USD 320). Obtaining these items from crisis-stricken Venezuela is often impractical or impossible. As a result, fewer than 10% of Venezuelans with higher education manage to have their degrees validated. In effect, this functions as a major non-tariff barrier: highly trained professionals are de facto barred from working in their fields unless they repeat years of study.
As one example, consider healthcare. After SUNEDU validation, foreign doctors and nurses must also register with Peru’s professional colleges (e.g. the Colegio Médico del Perú for physicians). During the COVID-19 emergency, Peru did temporarily relax these rules and allowed foreign medical professionals to work under urgent need, demonstrating that bureaucratic hurdles can be overcome by policy choice. Yet today the restrictive norms have largely returned, for example, the medical association has refused to recognize certain Venezuelan medical qualifications (e.g. “médicos integrales comunitarios”), effectively barring a whole cohort of practitioners.[3] The result is that many qualified Venezuelan engineers, teachers, doctors, and lawyers remain locked out of their professions, contributing instead to unskilled jobs.
De Facto Contributions and Lost Potential
Overall, the above detailed picture is disheartening: despite laws designed to promote it, the right to work remains largely illusory for Venezuelan migrants. Yet it is important to emphasise what is at stake. While existing studies confirm that Venezuelan migrants already generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually for Peru, the larger story lies in what is lost. Because only a fraction of this workforce is absorbed into formal jobs, the economy forfeits the multiplier effects of taxation, social security contributions, and professional-sector participation. In other words, the current barriers do not just restrict individual livelihoods, they actively suppress a revenue stream that could be far larger if migrants were regularized and integrated into skilled employment. They show that the current barriers are not an economic necessity and that, on the contrary, removing them would be to Peru’s clear advantage.
Policy Recommendations
Rectifying the current disconnect requires a comprehensive integration strategy that moves beyond fragmented, control-oriented responses. Administrative reform must be the first priority: for example, asylum backlogs should be reduced by dedicating greater resources to the CEPR and adopting group-based adjudication to provide timely work authorization. Equally important is the creation of a long-term, inclusive regularization program, offering all Venezuelans – regardless of entry status – a stable pathway to residency and work. A model similar to Colombia’s Estatuto Temporal de Protección para Migrantes Venezolanos (ETPV) would prevent the recurrence of manufactured irregularity and foster economic integration. At the same time, credential recognition should be overhauled to eliminate prohibitive costs, streamline procedures, and introduce provisional licenses so that skilled professionals can immediately contribute in high-demand sectors such as health and engineering. Finally, public-private partnerships and anti-discrimination campaigns are essential to connect migrants with formal employment opportunities and to counter the xenophobic rhetoric that has often undermined their prospects. Taken together, these measures would align Peru’s practices with its legal obligations while transforming migrants from an excluded population into active participants in the national economy.
Conclusion
The Venezuelan displacement crisis presents Peru with both a unique challenge and an extraordinary opportunity. On paper, the country has committed itself to a framework that guarantees refugees and migrants the right to work, yet in practice that right remains largely illusory. Administrative paralysis, shifting immigration policies, and restrictive credential regimes have combined to deny Venezuelans meaningful economic participation, leaving the majority trapped in informality. This reality undermines fundamental rights and wastes a significant reservoir of human capital that could otherwise strengthen Peru’s growth and fiscal stability. Implementing the reforms outlined above would not only restore dignity to Venezuelan migrants but also unlock their considerable economic and social contributions. Ultimately, the task is not merely one of policy efficiency but of legal and moral coherence, focused on bridging the gap between doctrine and reality so that the right to work is not a theoretical guarantee, but a lived experience for those who have sought refuge in Peru.
[1] This document was originally published in Spanish. Translated using Google translate.
[2] This article was published in Spanish. Translated using Google Translate.
[3] This article was published in Spanish. Translated using Google translate.
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