Refugee skills in the UK jobs market

           

Last month, I wrote an article about the social enterprise Transitions and the treatment of refugees in the UK for the online paper Friend's Gazette. While I was writing, one of the things which struck me most was just how convoluted the terminology could be, for the various processes and positions which refugee professionals have to negotiate along the factory-line towards stable employment. More than once I had to double-check that I'd written it correctly, and indeed the final article had a few slip-ups in it.


Seeking employment through internship, work experience, staff volunteering or any method at all is a difficult and intimidating enough process for anybody. That's without having unfamiliar, or worse, already stigmatised terms like 'asylum seeker' and 'conditional refugee status' attached to you in any way. It seems that what these terms actually mean, and their true purpose of protecting refugees from bias is overshadowed by what employers think they mean; that refugees have some kind of 'risk factor' attached, and that employing one would be, at best, a way of ticking their CSR box for 'diversity' and at worst, an act of charity.

Whether or not new terms would actually help, however, is a different matter. It's true that there is limited widespread misunderstanding of, for instance, the difference between 'asylum seekers' and 'refugees', and it's also true that because of this, both have decidedly negative connotations in the job market, but it seems likely this is a symptom rather than a cause of the problem. Simplifying or changing the terms for shiny new ones would ultimately be futile, without seeing to the problem of how they became tarnished in the first place. The real problem it seems is simple unconscious bias, caused by the inherent suspicion we have in this country towards migrants of any sort. Just looking at the success of UKIP in the recent European elections will confirm this suspicion's prevalence in anybody's mind.


Whatever the cause of the UK job market's inhospitable attitude to refugee professionals, the problem is there, and it's never going to completely go, either. However, it seems to me that the work done by Transitions and social enterprises like it is admirable, and what's more, invaluable. Not a charity but a business, Transitions proves that business and social responsibility are completely compatible, on any scale, from small enterprises to the largest multinationals, and not only that, but of mutual benefit. By employing more refugee professionals, businesses not only reach their targets for diversity management and responsible procurement, but would also benefit from a wealth of experience and qualifications which many refugee professionals can bring to the table, if they are simply given the chance.

You can find the full article at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/221274199/FRIENDS-GAZETTE-April-edition
by Sophie Shao, guest blogger