By Hayk Khanumyan
According to official statistics from Nagorno-Karabakh, as of the pre-war period in 2019, the number of people of working age in Nagorno-Karabakh exceeded 105,000. The working-age population included people aged 16–63. The economically active population—the number of employed people and those seeking employment—was approximately 72,000. The distribution of the labour force across age groups was relatively stable, with young and middle-aged people constituting the largest groups in these statistics. (All these figures are available in the official statistical yearbooks of Nagorno-Karabakh; see the section on employment here.)
As of March 2026, approximately 25,000 forcibly displaced people from Nagorno-Karabakh had found employment in Armenia. Consequently, approximately 35 percent of Nagorno-Karabakh’s economically active population, or around 24 percent of its working-age population, is currently integrated into Armenia’s labour market. Although, following the forced displacement, the Armenian government has sought to implement employment programmes for Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians (programme 1, programme 2), it can be concluded that these efforts have been insufficient, often reaching only a limited number of beneficiaries or failing to produce a long-term impact.
According to discussions involving community and other leaders from Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as reports prepared on the basis of those discussions, employment and access to borrowed funds for starting a business are among the top three priorities identified by Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians, surpassed only by housing.
It is evident that current employment figures are insufficient and that additional efforts are needed. If we compare the number of employed people with the population currently residing in Armenia, the employment rate among Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians remains significantly below the Armenian average. Officially employed people account for more than 26 percent of Armenia’s population (805,000 employed out of a population of 3.05 million), compared with more than 20 percent among Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians (25,000 employed out of an estimated 121,000 people currently residing in Armenia). The latter figure is based on the approximately 150,000 people who lived in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020, minus approximately 22,500 who emigrated between 2020 and 2026, as well as the approximately 1,300 people killed in the wars of 2020–2023. To bring the employment rate closer to the Armenian average, another 7,000–8,000 Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians would need to find employment.
The challenge of finding employment contributes to the concentration of the forcibly displaced population in Yerevan and surrounding areas. As a rule, the number of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians settled in more remote regions continues to decline, while their numbers in Yerevan and nearby settlements increase.
Following the forced displacement, the education and healthcare sectors were among the most effective in integrating displaced professionals into their respective fields. They used various mechanisms, including retraining programmes, to enable teachers and healthcare workers from Nagorno-Karabakh to fill vacant positions quickly. A certain number of military personnel also continued their service in the Armenian Armed Forces. However, this process encountered an artificial obstacle as a result of the Armenian government’s decision of October 26, 2023, which recognised the forcibly displaced population from Nagorno-Karabakh as refugees and placed them under Armenia’s protection, despite the fact that many residents of Nagorno-Karabakh held Armenian passports.
Since Armenian citizenship was required for military service, bureaucratic delays associated with obtaining new passports hindered the immediate enlistment of displaced military personnel, disrupting the smooth integration of these individuals into the armed forces.
These measures, however, were not sufficient to fill vacant positions with available human resources. In my view, one of the reasons was the lack of coordination between housing and employment programmes. The government should have taken a more active role in matching vacant positions across different sectors with professionals from Nagorno-Karabakh, while simultaneously using state housing mechanisms in the same locations.
Approximately 10,000 people in Nagorno-Karabakh were self-employed, most of them in agriculture. Since Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians do not own land in Armenia, and the conditions for leasing land are not as favourable as they were in Nagorno-Karabakh, it is reasonable to assume that a large number of these people are no longer active in this sector. The high proportion of self-employed people among those employed demonstrates that many have an entrepreneurial drive and the capacity to establish their own businesses.
The best way to encourage this entrepreneurial potential is to create mechanisms for people to establish their own businesses, whether through grant funds or a system of risk-based lending. It should be recognised that the overwhelming majority of these people are not creditworthy and do not have collateral. Therefore, the approach should differ from solutions designed for normal market conditions. The government’s self-employment programme is an important step in this regard, but its limited scale makes it insufficient. The government could bring together organisations and other stakeholders implementing programmes aimed at the economic integration of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians and work with them to establish a risk-based lending or grant fund to finance the business ideas of forcibly displaced people.
These loans could also be made available to existing businesses that have already employed a certain number of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians. The government and donor organisations could encourage joint economic initiatives involving local and displaced populations, particularly in the regions. This would help reduce potential social tensions between host communities and displaced people.
Special retraining programmes should also be implemented for retired military personnel. Armenian legislation allows people to retire from military service at a relatively young age, in some cases as early as 38. This means that there is a large group of predominantly middle-aged men with certain characteristics—they are accustomed to discipline, responsibility, structured daily routines and other skills that can be valuable in the labour market. The government should introduce targeted programmes to retrain retired military personnel in professions that are in demand and make use of their potential to address labour-market shortages. In this area, the government could coordinate the efforts of private companies and donor organisations.
Making use of the agricultural potential of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians could produce several positive outcomes. Only around half of Armenia’s existing arable land is currently being cultivated. If programmes aimed at supporting people engaged in agriculture are combined with efforts to bring these arable lands into cultivation, the results could be greater than expected—not only in terms of more efficient land use, but also for food security, agricultural growth and employment.
The economic integration of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians should not be viewed merely as a social burden. With proper planning, it could become a significant driver of regional development in Armenia, agricultural growth and the expansion of the country’s labour force.