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Migrants and refugees: an opportunity for the European job market?
Ignacio Urquijo
23 October 2015
“The entire discussion about how to handle the refugee crisis in Europe is based on the wrong concept. The current mind-set is how to handle a burden, instead of making use of an opportunity. We need to turn the discussion upside down”. This is how the article ‘Let them work!’ starts. The article, published in the website Politico, points out that “we have a demographic issue [in the EU]. A situation where there are not enough young people to fill the jobs in Europe and ensure the functioning of the system feeding all the old people”.
Other studies, such as the one published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), have recently debated a similar issue, for example in the paper ‘Is migration good for the economy?’. OECD is clear in its answer: “Migrants fill important niches both in fast-growing and declining sectors of the economy, contribute significantly to labour-market flexibility, notably in Europe, contribute more in taxes and social contributions than they receive in benefits, boost the working-age population.” These are some of the conclusions found in the article, accompanied by complementary data.
As noted by the authors of the paper ‘Europe Can Find Better Ways to Get Refugees into Workforces’, published by Harvard Business Review, “most people fleeing conflict and political oppression don’t want handouts – they want to work in order to create some semblance of a normal life for their families”, yet “many European countries have not put in place effective processes for integrating into the workforce the growing number of well-qualified refugees they are hosting”.
Improving the situation of the people on the move coming to the European Union will not only contribute to the benefit of the direct receivers, but from a exclusively practical point of view, will also contribute positively to a “region facing a looming pensions crisis and skills shortages”.
This article explores the practices that could be undertaken in order to foster the integration of the people on the move in the labour market, starting from improving the process of recognizing domestic qualifications. Boosting the profile of services like the ‘National Academic Recognition Information Centre’, which provides a way to compare academic qualifications, “would be a good way to speed up the recognition of foreign qualifications”.
Another big obstacle is the process of learning the foreign language, since “delays in starting the courses can be as long as a year after the refugee is granted asylum” and usually the lessons “take migrants only to the very basic A1 or A2 levels”. There are other programs that have been proved to be more successful, like ‘Step-in Jobs’, implemented in Sweden. This program “encourages employers to accept immigrants who combine work with language studies” by receiving “80 per cent subsidy for salary costs, the period during which the employee is learning Swedish”. The extra benefit of the approach is that “the immigrant gets to practice what he or she learns in the classroom through working with Swedish colleagues”.
Beside these difficulties, for any job seeker, but especially for the ones coming from abroad, it is extremely important to learn how to compete in the job market, understanding the importance of soft skills and other social requirements that might be different in the origin countries. According to the authors, “governments need to up-skill state employment services so that refugees receive the advice and assistance they need in adjusting to European job markets”.
Finally, the article concludes with the example of the Metropolitan Police in London, which “has accepted headscarves as a uniform option for Muslim women serving in the force, just as the turban was accepted as part of the uniform for Sikh policemen”. However, it is also noticed that wearing a headscarf normally minimize the chances to get hired in many companies, showing that there are still plenty of bad practices that should be rooted out.
Sources:
Geiger, Andreas. September 2015. ‘Let migrants work!’ in Politico.
OECD. May 2014. ‘Is migration good for the economy?’ in Migration Policy Debates.
Van Wassenhove, Luk N.; and Boufaied, Othman. October 2015. ‘Europe Can Find Better Ways to Get Refugees into Workforces’ in Harvard Business Review.
Other studies, such as the one published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), have recently debated a similar issue, for example in the paper ‘Is migration good for the economy?’. OECD is clear in its answer: “Migrants fill important niches both in fast-growing and declining sectors of the economy, contribute significantly to labour-market flexibility, notably in Europe, contribute more in taxes and social contributions than they receive in benefits, boost the working-age population.” These are some of the conclusions found in the article, accompanied by complementary data.
As noted by the authors of the paper ‘Europe Can Find Better Ways to Get Refugees into Workforces’, published by Harvard Business Review, “most people fleeing conflict and political oppression don’t want handouts – they want to work in order to create some semblance of a normal life for their families”, yet “many European countries have not put in place effective processes for integrating into the workforce the growing number of well-qualified refugees they are hosting”.
Improving the situation of the people on the move coming to the European Union will not only contribute to the benefit of the direct receivers, but from a exclusively practical point of view, will also contribute positively to a “region facing a looming pensions crisis and skills shortages”.
This article explores the practices that could be undertaken in order to foster the integration of the people on the move in the labour market, starting from improving the process of recognizing domestic qualifications. Boosting the profile of services like the ‘National Academic Recognition Information Centre’, which provides a way to compare academic qualifications, “would be a good way to speed up the recognition of foreign qualifications”.
Another big obstacle is the process of learning the foreign language, since “delays in starting the courses can be as long as a year after the refugee is granted asylum” and usually the lessons “take migrants only to the very basic A1 or A2 levels”. There are other programs that have been proved to be more successful, like ‘Step-in Jobs’, implemented in Sweden. This program “encourages employers to accept immigrants who combine work with language studies” by receiving “80 per cent subsidy for salary costs, the period during which the employee is learning Swedish”. The extra benefit of the approach is that “the immigrant gets to practice what he or she learns in the classroom through working with Swedish colleagues”.
Beside these difficulties, for any job seeker, but especially for the ones coming from abroad, it is extremely important to learn how to compete in the job market, understanding the importance of soft skills and other social requirements that might be different in the origin countries. According to the authors, “governments need to up-skill state employment services so that refugees receive the advice and assistance they need in adjusting to European job markets”.
Finally, the article concludes with the example of the Metropolitan Police in London, which “has accepted headscarves as a uniform option for Muslim women serving in the force, just as the turban was accepted as part of the uniform for Sikh policemen”. However, it is also noticed that wearing a headscarf normally minimize the chances to get hired in many companies, showing that there are still plenty of bad practices that should be rooted out.
Sources:
Geiger, Andreas. September 2015. ‘Let migrants work!’ in Politico.
OECD. May 2014. ‘Is migration good for the economy?’ in Migration Policy Debates.
Van Wassenhove, Luk N.; and Boufaied, Othman. October 2015. ‘Europe Can Find Better Ways to Get Refugees into Workforces’ in Harvard Business Review.
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