Finding a job is hard enough – for a refugee the challenge is multiplied
Refugee and humanitarian arrivals to Australia in recent years are likely to have experienced greater instability and disruption in their lives before migrating compared with earlier arrivals. They are more likely to have spent more time in dangerous and disruptive environments. They are less likely to have worked in the year before arrival and less likely to have worked in skilled occupations in their former country. All these factors work against refugees’ chances of labour market success.
These refugees may have had little or no choice in migrating, had no choice in their country of resettlement and have little or no understanding of employment opportunities in the Australian context.
All of these, sometimes traumatic, uncertainties are likely to contribute to an individual’s feelings of vulnerability and disempowerment in relation to employment. The need to gain employment quickly is especially important for refugees as they attempt to achieve some security but that need can lead to them accepting less desirable jobs or foregoing opportunities to learn English.
As they compound, such experiences – combined with a pre-migration experience of interrupted employment – can have negative impacts on labour market prospects in the long term.
For the vast majority of recent refugees, unemployment means low income, which in turn can exacerbate health issues and present a barrier to well-being in a range of other ways. The ability to secure decent housing, for example, is dependent on income and in turn, sustainable employment.
The Brotherhood of St Laurence's Given the Chance - workforce solutions that matter program not only assists refugees, asylum seekers and other marginalised jobseekers find work, it also supports employers to grow and diversify their workplaces.
To read more, visit ANZ Blue Notes where this blog first appeared.
Visit the Given The Chance program's new website .