Refugees will have the right to work, why not employ them?

We would like to reproduce the recent article from the Guardian (Refugees will have the right to work, why not employ them?)  that focus on recent positions of compagnies in the UK or Germany to promote the employment of asylum seekers and refugees. 

Europe may be deeply divided over how to host hundreds of thousands of refugees coming to the continent this year, but some companies are now considering the struggles new arrivals will face finding work. Business leaders in Germany have responded to the refugee crisis by calling for the thousands of people arriving each day to be given help to find employment.

“If we can integrate them quickly into the jobs market, we’ll be helping the refugees, but also helping ourselves as well,” the head of the BDI industry federation, Ulrich Grillo, told the AFP news agency earlier this week. Other business bodies in Germany have backed calls for an easing of restrictions so that skilled refugees can help the country fill gaps in its workforce.

Some socially responsible businesses in the UK are now wondering how they might help newcomers find jobs.

Sheila Heard is the managing director of social enterprise Transitions, a London-based recruitment service that aims to connect British employers with refugees from a professional background.

Heard has just succeeded in arranging a work placement for an architect from Afghanistan at an architectural firm in London. Transitions’ other recent recruitment clients include Crossrail, National Grid and the engineering firm Arup. Yet Heard remains frustrated by the qualms many businesses still have about candidates’ immigration status and overseas qualifications. 

Business ignorance

What about asylum seekers?

For those stuck in the process of making their claim for asylum, the situation is bleaker. Asylum seekers can only apply for permission to work if they have waited for over 12 months for an initial decision on their claim. Even then, permission to work only allows them to do jobs on the UK’s “shortage occupations list”: specific fields in which there are staff shortfalls.

“Unfortunately, many employers don’t know what refugee status means, and imagine there’s a lot of hassle involved in taking someone on,” she explains. “But it’s very straightforward – if someone has refugee status there are no points-based restrictions.”

Anyone given refugee status in the UK will also have a National Insurance number, and is permitted to work at any skill level. The 20,000 Syrians that Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged to accept in the UK over the next five years will be given humanitarian protection status as refugees, and will therefore have the right to work.

Heard hopes more businesses consider the benefits of taking on refugees with specialist skills. “We’ve got people into work who are very experienced accountants, architects, engineers, IT experts,” she says. “A lot of employers have said, ‘We had no idea there’s this talent pool’. Many businesses value the knowledge of international practice that refugees can bring.”

“It’s not about charity,” she adds. “It’s about allowing skilled candidates to compete in the jobs market along with everyone else.”

If employers do have concerns about how overseas qualifications compare to those in the UK, professional bodies for each industry – or the independent agency UK NARIC – can assess their equivalency. 

Elsewhere, social businesses have invested in training refugees trying to build a new life in Britain. In Southampton, ethical underwear business Who Made Your Pants? has offered refugee women the chance to produce its lingerie.

Launched as a co-operative back in December 2009, Who Made Your Pants? provided lessons in sewing and English, and now has eight women from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sudan and Somalia working in the production team.

And Mazi Mas, a pop-up restaurant project, is providing opportunities for refugee women in London. It allows aspiring chefs to showcase their culinary skills, and supports them in efforts to set up their own businesses.

Refugee charities, however, remain frustrated that no comprehensive employment support is available after funding for a national programme – the Refugee Integration and Employment Service (RIES) – was scrapped back in 2011. Lisa Doyle, head of advocacy at the Refugee Council, says its demise “has resulted in many being left to fend for themselves in an unfamiliar job market.”

“The restrictions mean very, very few asylum seekers are able to work here,” explains Mike Kaye, advocacy manager for Still Here Still Human, a campaign for a fairer asylum system supported by a network of charities, local authorities and church groups.

At the moment, asylum seekers are given a payment of £36.95 a week to live on. “Giving asylum seekers permission to work would save money in state support costs by giving them their own route out of destitution,” he says. “If you leave people without the means to support themselves, it leads people towards illegal work and exploitation – things which aren’t good for society or the individual.”

In reality, some asylum seekers may look to the increasing casualisation of the labour market: the so-called “gig economy” in which many freelance jobs can be arranged online without paperwork. 

Kaye thinks reducing the length of time asylum seekers have to wait to legally work from 12 months to six would be “sensible, economically efficient and compassionate”, and would help more people integrate into society.

Asylum seekers’ right to work was removed back in 2002 and successive governments have maintained that giving this group access to the labour market would remove the distinction between economic migration and asylum.