Blue skies clouded for Korean immigrants

1 December 2006

Highly skilled and educated Korean immigrants struggle to find work with New Zealand companies – and it’s not just language barriers at fault. These were the findings of a Families Commission "Blue Skies" research report, Korean Migrant Families in Christchurch: Expectations and Experiences.

The report, based on interviews with 36 Korean immigrants living in Christchurch, may shed light on difficulties facing Koreans in New Zealand generally.

While recent immigrants identify language difficulties as barrier to finding work, Koreans who have been here longer feel that anti-Asian sentiments bar them from skilled employment, the report says. Several longer-term immigrants point out that it is very difficult for their children to find jobs here, even though they have attended New Zealand schools, gained New Zealand qualifications and speak fluent English, the report said.

The survey also says:

Many Korean immigrants entering New Zealand under the “general skills” category worked in Korea as managers, executives, or professionals in fields such as computer programming, engineering, or architecture.
In New Zealand, many of them can only find unskilled work, often in retail businesses that exist to serve the Korean community itself: groceries, restaurants, travel agencies etc.
The overwhelming majority of Koreans in New Zealand have only been here a short time – less than a decade for 87 percent of them.
Twenty-six percent of Korean respondents to the 2001 Census said they did not speak English.
Recent immigrants tend to believe their job prospects will improve as their language improves. Some longer-term residents doubt this.

Many Koreans interviewed for the report say they emigrated in order to escape their country’s “workaholic” lifestyle. They say they are prepared to lose the status their former jobs gave them in order to give their children a better life, which they believe a Western education will bring them.

Ironically, many of those children have found it impossible to enter the careers for which they have trained in New Zealand. Young Koreans who were interviewed said they thought “80 percent” of their peers left New Zealand, mainly because it was too hard to get jobs here.

There are around 3000 Koreans resident in Christchurch and a further 2000 living there as students, according to Christchurch Korean Society secretary Andrew Yoon.

The national total in 2001 was 19,000.

Department of Labour figures show that Korean immigrants have one of the highest levels of unemployment and the second-lowest median incomes of any ethnic group in New Zealand.

Although many Korean immigrants bring a high level of education and experience from their home country, they suffer 57 percent unemployment and their median personal income is only $5,300, according to 2006 Department of Labour statistics.