This is from the ABC in Tasmania about training migrant women. I have made some edits and included some quotes from myself about recruiter and employer race prejudice.
“Many skilled migrant women find it hard to get a job in Australia as either their qualifications are not recognised, they have no Australian work experience or they meet covertly racist recruiters.
Two years ago, Areej Fatima migrated to Australia on a skilled migrant visa. She arrived with a master’s degree in science and a background in teaching and administration, but finding employment has not been easy.
“I was fortunate enough to get a job last year, but it was a casual job [not in her field]— so there still is a long way to go,” Ms Fatima said.
With aspirations to work full time, Ms Fatima said the struggle had been demoralising.
“It’s quite demotivating when you’re not getting jobs, and [when] you are not getting the right job you are aiming for,” she said.
“Wherever you go, they’ll ask for experience and I didn’t have any experience from Australia. I had to start from scratch.”
This year Ms Fatima took part in the Dream Again Mentoring Program — an initiative by non-for-profit organisation Be Hers Foundation, delivered in partnership with TasTAFE.
Tailored for women from diverse backgrounds, the 14-week program provides accredited training in two employment pathway options: sewing and retail cosmetics.
It’s staggering that they think this is all women can do in the 21st century. Do you really think a person with a Master degree in science wants to flog cosmetics? (King)
Ally Levinson, the general manager of Be Hers Foundation, said many women from diverse backgrounds were either unemployed or “underemployed” — meaning they were working “survival jobs” that did not utilise their expertise or passions.
“A lot of our participants come from highly skilled backgrounds,” Ms Levinson said.
“We’ve got midwives, nurses, people that have masters [degrees] in so many different skill sets, yet they’re unable to get a job because of the lack of the recognised qualifications in Australia, and also the lack of work experience.
“We look at how we can help those women to diversify their skill set and have those opportunities for financial independence.”
TasTAFE teacher and program mentor Nikola Colls said the Dream Again program helped to reduce barriers to employment.
“It is really targeted [to] a group of women who otherwise miss out on a lot of these opportunities,” Ms Colls said.
Participants spend weekly sessions creating products and developing skills such as customer service and managing cash flow.
Ms Fatima said the experience had been helpful for her retail work.
“Whatever we are learning, I can relate it to what I’m doing at my work,” she said.
A 2023 report found Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) women had a lower rate of workforce participation than their male counterparts.
The report Intersectionality at Work, by the Victorian government, found the rate for women and men to be 47.3 per cent to 69.5 per cent respectively.
While she spent a year applying for jobs with little success, her husband was able to find employment within a few months.
“He was fortunate enough to get [a] proper job … but I had struggled almost a year for that,” Ms Fatima said, adding that a delay in getting her driver’s licence was also a significant barrier.
Aimen Jafri, a community advocate for multicultural communities, said migrant women were an untapped market, as many were skilled but unable to get their “foot inside the door”.
“Finance is a big problem. When migrants come, they are not … so financially stable that they can rely on one income,” Ms Jafri said.
“People fall into the traps of survival jobs because they have to make their ends meet. [Women] either end up doing Uber or they end up doing security and then they will not get time or an opportunity to upskill themselves.”
With the program coming to an end in late November, Ms Fatima is hopeful her accreditation, training and new-found confidence will lead to more employment opportunities.
“Before joining the program, I was stuck. I didn’t know how to find a better job or what career to start with,” she said.
With recent subsidy cuts of some TasTAFE courses, Be Hers Foundation is exploring how the program will be delivered next year.