For a city with such a high rate of immigrant settlement, Auckland has left it surprisingly late to tackle migrant employment issues. Refugee employment has had to wait even longer, but thanks to a grant from the JR McKenzie Trust, Auckland Regional Migrant Services(ARMS) expects to start a programme this year that will address refugee unemployment.

 

Before ARMS was formed three years ago, nobody was looking after migrants and refugees in the region, says ARMS spokesperson Asoka Basnayake. Discussions between various migrant communities and Mayoral forums in 2000 led to a research report, Migrant Settlement Services in the Auckland Region by Marney Ainsworth and Karen Johns, identifying what migrants needed. The report urged the formation of a “one stop shop” where migrants could access information, English language help, settlement assistance and employment help.

 

“When we started, there were lots of people who had been living here for a long time with no assistance. They just swarmed in. We had 200-300 people registering every month, but now it’s about 250 every three months,” Basnayake says.

 

New immigration policies mean that more people arrive in New Zealand already having job offers, so ARMS has shifted its focus, she says. For instance, ARMS now looks for employment for the spouses of migrants who have come in with jobs.

 

But another focus is refugee employment. “It’s a whole different category because our employment programme was geared for a different population. With refugees, you have a whole range. We’re seeing a lot now who come from places like Iran and Iraq – in Iraq especially, they can be often highly qualified. But some come from countries where they do not have ready access to education, and they may not be able to read and write in their own language. So we’re looking at language and literacy and social skills that they have to acquire.”

 

The programme may start by targeting young refugee women. “What we’ve noticed is that there are lots of young refugee women that are not in jobs although their English is good. They may have been educated in New Zealand, but still have barriers to getting a job.” This group, she feels, is not so much in the “too hard” basket.

 

Basnayake says she hasn’t seen much change in discrimination against the groups she works with during her three years with ARMS. “People are getting jobs and getting into higher level jobs, but still there are lots of people that are finding barriers.”

 

One of the barriers is that old perennial, lack of New Zealand work experience. “At the moment, people are given points by Immigration for their skills and experience, and people are given false hopes. If I get points for my experience overseas, I’d expect to get a job with that experience. But employers want New Zealand experience, and how can you get that experience if you haven’t got a job?

 

“Policy makers need to work much more closely with employers….Employers are able to say that they are EEO employers but what proof do we have that they don’t discriminate? It’s a step in the right direction but it needs to be improved.

 

“Maybe migrant and refugee employment could benefit from a programme modelled on the State Services Commission’s “Mainstream”  supported employment scheme to help disabled people into work. Employers find that it’s been a huge success. Mainstream subsidises a person with a disability, providing a percentage of their wages for two years. At the end of that time the employer may keep them, or if not, the person has benefited from two years of work experience. We could identify long-term unemployed migrants with skills who are looking for work – there should be a way of identifying them and putting them on something like Mainstream.”