They're all cleaning: recent refugees in the secondary labour market

Abstract

This paper draws from a collaborative, ARC-funded project titled 'Refugees and employment: the influence of visible difference on discrimination' (2004-2006), focused on three refugee groups (ex-Yugoslavs, black Africans and people from the Middle East) in Western Australia. Our research shows that the recent refugee arrivals are concentrated in labour market niches such as cleaning services, aged care, meat processing, taxidriving and security. These employment niches are situated in the 'secondary labour market' comprising low-status and low-paid jobs that locals avoid or shun altogether. This article identifies several interrelated mechanisms through which the recent Australian refugee intake is relegated to these jobs: non-recognition of qualifications as a systemic barrier, 'ethnic-path integration' and the lack of mainstream social networks that could assist the job search, discrimination on the basis of race and cultural difference by employers, and the recent government policy of 'regional sponsored migration scheme' through which the governments tries to fill (low-skilled) labour shortages in depopulating regional areas. Our data show massive loss of occupational status among skilled and highly skilled refugees