Since 2018, the Swiss State Secretariat for Migration is testing a new, data-driven method for assigning asylum seekers to cantons across the country. The desired goal is to increase the employment rate of refugees. Asylum seekers in the pilot program are assessed by an algorithm designed to maximize their chances of finding a job. The algorithm allows officials to send individuals to the canton that best fits their profile, rather than allocate them randomly, as under the current system. The placement algorithm was developed by the Immigration Policy Lab (IPL), which has branches at Stanford University and ETH Zurich, and an affiliated researcher from Dartmouth College. IPL researchers aimed to give countries around the world a tool to improve refugee integration that could easily be implemented, at low cost and without overhauling their existing systems. The historical data used to develop the algorithm for Switzerland included information on where refugees were sent, whether they found work, and their age, country of origin, gender, and time of arrival. The algorithm uses this complex history to calculate refugees’ probability of employment at each possible resettlement location, and then allocates them in a way that gives each person the best possible match. Beat Jans, Head of the Federal Department of Justice and Police FDJP recently confirmed and mentioned the testing of the system: "Together with ETH Zurich, the State Secretariat for Migration SEM has been testing a distribution algorithm for asylum seekers with prospects of remaining in Switzerland for several years, which takes individual integration opportunities into account in the cantonal distribution. ETH Zurich predicts a significant increase in the employment rate and thus a reduction in social welfare costs. If the administration is open to innovation, also in cooperation with research, this can create added value for society." A commission of the control committees evaluated the allocation in February 2025 and concluded that it was appropriate.
However, the committee called on the Federal Council to review the SEM algorithm, which does not take all criteria into account and therefore has to be overridden on a regular basis. This override is not applied uniformly in all federal asylum centers. According to the commison this leads to unequal treatment of asylum seekers when they are allocated to the cantons. The SEM must ensure uniform application in all federal asylum centers. The federal government should also examine whether the discrepancies between the desired and actual distribution in one year could be corrected in the following year. The commission made a further recommendation regarding the traceability of the data on which the allocation is based. It also recommends prioritizing IT renewal for the allocation. The federal council responded to the report in May 2025. In his answer, the federal council sees no need for action on most of the commissions' demands. It does, however, take note of the recommendation to upgrade IT tools. Corresponding measures are apparentlx already being planned.