Embracing the opportunities from refugee communities

Deakin Business School’s Alfred Deakin Professor Ingrid Nielsen and Professor Alex Newman are working with Professor Russell Smyth (Monash University) and Professor Giles Hirst (Australian National University) to determine the factors that contribute to refugees finding and maintaining work in Australia and to establish ways to enhance refugee job performance and retention.

Professor Nielsen has spent 15 years working in the field of labour migration in a range of contexts around the world and says the common thread throughout all her research is that migration often goes hand-in-hand with extreme hardship, persecution and vulnerability.

“We need to remember that many of these people have come here by necessity, not by choice. It is a choice to live; not a lifestyle choice,” Professor Nielsen said.

“We are talking about people who have been put through deep seated traumatic experiences that are absolutely life altering. They have given up everything and risked their lives to be here. They see many more problems in their immediate space than whether they can they find a job, but when they do find the right job, it can be a powerful driver of positive change in their lives.”

With funding from the Australian Research Council, the Deakin, Monash and ANU team have conducted a field study of several hundred refugees from Afghani, Sudanese, Sri Lankan, Iraqi, Iranian and Pakistani communities who have resettled in Melbourne. Based on the needs of these communities they have developed workshops to build up the toolbox of skills refugees need to gain sustainable employment. By shifting the focus to working directly with refugee groups, the team’s work is tackling the frontline issues faced by refugees in their everyday struggle to negotiate new lives and livelihoods.

Through targeted workshops that assist refugees to build community connections, understand their strengths, develop their psychological resources, set goals, and implement strategies to achieve their goals, refugee communities around Melbourne are becoming better equipped to manage day-to-day stress, build productive relationships, and use their newly developed skills to obtain meaningful and sustainable employment. These positive employment outcomes spill over into positive experiences outside of the workplace and contribute to stronger, happier and healthier societies.

“Our work ensures that the focus is very much on refugees themselves,” Professor Nielsen explained.

“While important work behind the scenes to develop policies to support the long term position of refugees is critical, it is equally critical that a team like ours is in among these people, working at the grassroots, to provide immediate and direct support.

“The refugees come to these workshops and they’re taught skills about how to find work, how to keep work, how to build their own internal personal psychological resources. The aim is to get them involved and to see the personal benefits.

“And we see the benefits every day in what we do. People becoming more connected, more certain of their options and opportunities, but at the same time realistic about their challenges and what they need to do to overcome them. Empowering disempowered people is really what we do – and it works.”

Professor Nielsen believes that it is unfortunate that the average person is likely to see refugees as problems to be managed rather than opportunities to be embraced.

“We have an opportunity to see this group of people help build the fabric of the country and to help us solve problems that we haven’t been able to solve, particularly in terms of our labour market,” Professor Nielsen said.

“At the moment we see, more often than not, suboptimal labour market outcomes among refugees. We see highly trained, highly skilled professionals struggling to find stable employment in even the lowest skilled occupations. With the right support and incentives in place, the Australian government could quite reasonably begin to shift this country to a position where refugees’ skills are leveraged both for the benefit of refugees themselves, and the benefit of the nation.

“And the key to future proofing the community is ensuring children are involved in the conversation about how to best settle and support refugees.

“It is going to be the next generation that is the difference between whether or not our multicultural community works or doesn’t work, splinters or coalesces.”