Key Points
- Diverse jobseekers struggle to find work in Australia.
- What barriers do they face, and what support is available?
Unemployment numbers in Australia have hit record lows for the past few months, but these patterns aren't echoed across all demographics.
According to June data from the 23.5 per cent of Australia's unemployed population have come from areas where English is not the main language.
Language barriers, lack of Australian work experience, limited social networks, and issues in having skills and qualifications recognised routinely pose challenges for these jobseekers when looking for work.
The unemployment rate continues to drop despite rising inflation, with figures released by the ABS on Thursday revealing it is currently sitting at 3.4 per cent, the lowest since 1974.
Among those struggling in the job market are Tania Abdul Muti and her family, who came to Australia in 2016, seeking safety and security.
Tania, who is Palestinian, was born in a refugee camp in Lebanon, and later spent three years as an asylum seeker in Indonesia before coming to Australia on a humanitarian visa.
After arriving in Australia, it took her five years to find a job.
“When I came to Australia, I had two kids, and it was not easy, especially because when we were in Indonesia we were not working, it was like three years on hold of our lives,” she said.
“It’s not easy, you need to support your resume, undertake courses, have local experience, in order for any employer to trust you’ll be a good fit … it was pretty hard at the beginning to get a chance.”
Tania isn’t the only one facing this kind of difficulty.
The Grattan Institute's examined the role migrants play in Australia's labour market, and found roughly one in three workers in Australia were born overseas, with recent arrivals — considered to be those who arrived within the past decade — making up about 10 per cent of the labour force.
The report also found family visa-holders work at similar rates to people born in Australia, while humanitarian visa-holders tend to fare worse.
While Tania says having a baby after arriving in Australia somewhat slowed down her search for work, a major factor was the language barrier and trying to obtain local experience.
Tania Abdul Muti came to Australia with her family in 2016 on a humanitarian visa after spending three years seeking asylum in Indonesia. Source: Supplied / Tania Abdul Muti
“I was doing courses to get ready, I was undertaking many courses, many trainings with different providers to get ready for work,” she said.
“It’s hard to get accepted by employers, it's not easy … no one will risk somebody from CALD backgrounds or from a different culture, it’s not easy for them to trust.”
“I was going to job services and I was saying ‘I have experience, I know how to work, just give me a chance to understand this country,’ it was so stressful for me.”
What support is available for new arrivals to Australia?
Workforce Australia, an employment service established by the former government, was designed to help people move into or towards secure employment, including additional support for those who need it.
Under the program, providers are expected to deliver services personalised to the individual’s needs, including interpreters, English language programs, supported connections to counsellors and psychiatric services, and pre-employment training.
Last week, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Tony Burke announced a review of the implementation of the service, following complaints of unclear communication, issues accessing online services, and migrants and refugees being overlooked.
The spokesperson said there was not yet sufficient data to assess the number of people who have gained employment in Workforce Australia.
"The Select Committee on Workforce Australia Services will inquire into and report on matters such as the extent to which services are delivered in a way that respects individuals’ diverse needs, taking evidence on best practice and making recommendations for short and longer-term reforms to improve employment services," a spokesperson for the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations told SBS News.
The program also involves culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) or refugee licenses for specialist providers, designed to address the challenges and barriers migrant and refugee jobseekers face when seeking employment in Australia.
CALD jobseekers 'missing out'
Settlement Services International (SSI) Australia, a community organisation supporting newcomers to Australia, says Workforce Australia failed to issue licences in areas with high caseloads of CALD and refugee jobseekers in Australia.
Steve O'Neill, a general manager of service delivery at SSI Australia, said the areas in highest need of specialist services were missing out under the current scheme.
"Southwest Sydney, which has one of the highest CALD [and] one of the highest refugee populations, and is an epicentre for humanitarian settlement in Australia, didn't receive either a CALD or a refugee licence, yet other locations across Australia with much-reduced numbers of indicative caseload did receive licences," he said.
"The other part of the tender document that was put forward was that they would deliver somewhere between four and nine licenses in that southwestern Sydney area. And in fact, they delivered only four licenses. And those four licenses were to generalist service providers."
SSI was an applicant under the tender for a licence but was not issued one.
Mr O'Neill said his concerns were not about the fact that SSI was not granted a licence, but the system more broadly.
The department spokesperson told SBS News the allocation of licences was influenced by multiple factors.
"A number of employment regions, including those in Sydney, elicited highly competitive fields," the spokesperson said.
" This, together with factors such as respondents’ requests for certain business shares or particular site locations, shaped the department’s final licence decisions."
The spokesperson said generalist providers selected to operate in culturally diverse communities had successfully demonstrated their organisational capability to do this.
Barriers to employment
According to SSI Australia, migrant and refugee jobseekers face unique barriers when trying to find work.
Mr O'Neill said there should be a more streamlined approach to recognise overseas qualifications to allow migrants and refugees to practice in their relevant professional areas.
After Tania Abdul Muti came to Australia, it took her five years to find a job. Source: Supplied / Tania Abdul Muti
"We should be working much more closely with employers and industry about how we can work around recognition of overseas qualifications, how we might be able to work with professional associations and industry to ... make it a different sort of process for people to go through and certainly less costly practices."
