Challenging Barriers to Employment for Refugees

and Asylum Seekers in London

London Metropolitan University Louise Archer, Sumi Hollingworth & Uvanney Maylor Institute for Policy Studies in Education (IPSE) London Metropolitan University 166-220 Holloway Road London N7 8DB

Azar Sheibani & Ute Kowarzik Refugee Assessment and Guidance Unit (RAGU), College of London, London Metropolitan University, The Learning Centre, 236-250 Holloway Road N7 6PP

September 2005

Published in the UK in September 2005 by The SEQUAL Development Partnership (DP) Department of Political, International & Policy Studies, (M1) Division of Law and Politics School of Arts, Communication and Humanities University of Surrey Guildford Surrey GU2 7XH UK http://www.surrey.ac.uk/politics/cse/sequal.htm © The SEQUAL DP and individual authors ISBN 0-904242-55-2

Challenging Barriers to Employment for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in London

London Metropolitan University

CONTENTS Acknowledgements 1. Introduction 2. Background and Context to Refugees and Asylum Seekers and employment in the UK 3. Theoretical Approach 4. Methodology 5. The Views and Experiences of Refugees and Asylum Seekers

5.1 Experiences of barriers to accessing employment i. Personal, social and economic issues ii. Knowledge, information and advice iii. Qualification and credentials iv. Structural issues

5.2 Refugees’ reactions and responses to barriers 5.3 Good practices and factors that have helped refugees into employment 5.4 Retention and progression of those who have entered paid work

6. The Views and Experiences of Employers 6.1 Perceived barriers to employing refugees (on the part of employers and

organisations; on the part of refugees and asylum seekers) 6.2 Perceived benefits to employing refugees 6.3 What organisations need in order to become more diverse employers 6.4 Employers views of positive action strategies 6.5 Employers’ experiences of work placements

7. The Views of Refugee Agencies and Community Organisations 7.1 Additional barriers 7.2 Views on Good practices:

(i) Holistic models of advice and guidance (ii) Adopting a client centred approach (iii) Tailored job search courses (iv) Provision of ‘packages’ of support (v) Work placement schemes (vi) Job brokerage services (vii) Use of interpretation courses for employment mediation (viii) Partnerships with ESOL colleges/courses (ix) Engagement of both the public and private sectors.

8. Thematic Analyses 8.1 Race/ ethnicity and racism 8.2 The role of religious and political belief 8.3 Cross-cutting themes: Language 8.4 Health (mental and physical) 8.5 Social and geographical isolation 8.6 Age 8.7 Empowerment

9. Implications, Conclusions and Recommendations 10. References Appendices

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project was funded by EQUAL, through the SEQUAL partnership. It represents a collaborative project between the Refugee Assessment and Guidance Unit (RAGU) and the Institute for Policy Studies in Education (IPSE), both at London Metropolitan University. The project was conducted between May 2002- February 2005. Within the RAGU/ IPSE partnership, Azar Sheibani took responsibility for the overall direction of the project. Design, analysis and report writing was lead by Louise Archer, with assistance from Sumi Weldon-Hollingworth. Fieldwork was undertaken by Ute Kowarzik, Sheila Heard, Louise Salmon (RAGU) and Uvanney Maylor, Marie-Pierre Moreau and Louise Archer (IPSE). We would like to express our thanks to all those who kindly gave their time and views to participate in the study.

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SECTION ONE: INTRODUCTION London Metropolitan University is a parnter in the Sequal partnership. The SEQUAL partnership is funded by Equal (ESF) and is drawn from eight UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) that have experience in community education, development and regeneration and experience of working directly with disadvantaged and excluded people. The SEQUAL Partnership is Lead by the University of Surrey, partners include the University of Sussex, The University of Warwick, London Metropolitan University (formerly The University of North London), The University of Bristol, Edge Hill College of Higher Education, The University of Glasgow, The University of Wales, Bangor. This Development Partnership is designed to address issues of employability, namely “facilitating access and return to the labour market for those who have difficulty in being integrated into a labour market 'open to all”. This Partnership established a series of local delivery networks, each addressing one of seven themes concerning labour market discrimination: gender, sexual orientation, race and ethnic origin, religious and political belief, social class, disability and age. These themes were also supplemented with cross-cutting issues (empowerment, health, language, social/geographical isolation). It aims to articulate and enhance the understanding of complex, but vital lessons learned from practice, so that they can be of real impact on policy formulation in the interest of further employability and equity of access to employment. The Partnership works in a transnational Partnership called FACETS with colleagues from north, south and central Europe, namely Italy, Germany, Denmark, Portugal and Austria and in association with Hungary ( an accession state), particularly to develop responses based on a greater understanding of commonalities and differences related to employability and equal opportunities in the Labour Market. This report reflects work undertaken with respect to two of the seven themes, namely ‘race and ethnicity’ and ‘religious and political belief’. Responsibility for these two themes were shared by London Metropolitan University and Edge Hill College of HE (which has produced its own report on the themes in relation to established Black and Minority Ethnic communities in the UK).

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SECTION TWO: Background and Context to Refugees and Asylum Seekers and employment in the UK

This section discusses some of the legal, social and policy background to refugees and asylum seekers in Britain and introduces the specific context of the study. The chapter begins by outlining the Terminology and Legal Framework relating to asylum seekers and refugees in Britain. Section 2.2 discusses some statistics about Refugees in the UK, and Section 2.3 considers the state of Refugee Employment in Britain. In Section 2.4 we review some of the existing Research on barriers to employment among refugees. Key factors are outlined and a particular focus is given to how themes of race and racism have been addressed to date, thus providing a backdrop to the current study. The final section, (2.5, Race, Racism and Refugees in UK policy discourse: From Tebbit’s ‘cricket test’ to Blunkett’s ‘citizenship test’) examines the interconnection between media and policy discourse around refugees and asylum seekers.

2.1 Terminology and Legal Framework When the 1951 Geneva Convention (21 July 1951) defined the term ‘refugee’, it was originally conceived with reference to post-war European refugees, but was later expanded through the 1967 Bellagio Protocol, to encompass refugees beyond European borders. The Geneva Convention defined a refugee as:

‘Any person who ‘owing to a well founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion is outside the country of his nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence, is unable, or owing to such a fear is unwilling to return to it’ (UNHCR, 1966).

As is detailed further below, British law also distinguishes between refugees and asylum seekers: - An ‘asylum seeker’ is a person who has applied for asylum but who is still awaiting a

decision from the Home Office - Individuals who have been granted exceptional leave to remain (ELR), or more recently

(since April 2003) ‘Humanitarian Protection,’ or 'Discretionary Leave' are those who are not recognised as having refugee status but for whom the Home Office has accepted that they cannot return to their countries. Those who have been granted ‘Humanitarian Protection,’ after 3 years may be granted Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR). Those on Discretionary Leave are normally eligible to apply for ILR after six years (Refugee Council, 2005d).

- Refugees with recognised status are those who have been granted Refugee Status, as defined under the 1951 UN Convention. These individuals are also granted indefinite leave to remain (ILR) (Source: London Research Centre 1999).

- Any foreign national who has unconditional leave to remain in the UK can apply for British citizenship if s/he has had settled status for at least one year and has lived in the UK continuously for the five years previously. (Source: Refugee Council, 2005a)

Whilst there is a clearly identifiable date or point from which an individual may gain refugee status, there is no legal determination regarding the end or cessation of refugee status. Hence in some ways, the maintenance or continuance of refugee identity may relate to the self-view of an individual. The London Research Centre (in its report ‘Refugee Skills-Net’, 1999), describes how interviewees still identified themselves as refugees despite having been granted British citizenship.

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The legal framework concerning asylum seekers has undergone a series of substantial changes in recent years (see Schuster & Solomos 2004). Notably, in relation to employment, since 23 July 2002, asylum seekers are no longer allowed to apply for permission to work if they had not received an initial decision on their claim after six months. More recently (8 January 2003), it was established that only those individuals who applied for asylum prior to entering the UK would be entitled to support (i.e. those who waited until they were in the UK to claim asylum would be penalised). This legislation is likely to have a profound effect, since Home Office Statistics, which distinguish between ‘in country’ and ‘at port’ applications, reveal that 68% of asylum applications submitted in the third quarter of 2002 fell into the ‘in country’ category. The Geneva Convention has been ‘translated’ in the UK Law (through the Immigration Rules of 23 May 1994)1. According to this framework: ‘An asylum applicant will be granted asylum in the United Kingdom if the Secretary of State is satisfied that: (i) he is in the United Kingdom or has arrived at a port of entry in the United Kingdom;

and (ii) he is a refugee, as defined by the Geneva Convention and Protocol; and (iii) refusing his application would result in his being required to go (whether immediately

or after the time limit of an existing leave to enter or remain), in breach of the Convention and Protocol, to a country in which his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social group’.

(The Immigration Rules, 1994: Para 334). Currently, Humanitarian Protection is granted where the Home Office recognises that there is a real risk of death, torture, or other inhuman or degrading treatment, which falls outside the strict terms of the 1951 Refugee Convention. The Home Office grants discretionary leave to those who do not qualify for refugee status or humanitarian protection but cannot be removed. This may be because they have a serious medical condition making travel or return dangerous, or because removal would contravene their human rights. There may also be other practical or legal obstacles making removal impossible. Refugee agencies are concerned that this shift towards more temporary and insecure forms of protection will exacerbate feelings of uncertainty and trauma, and frustrate the integration process (Refugee Council, 2005d).

2.2. Refugees in the UK There is a relative scarcity of data relating to refugees in London and the UK (both in terms of general figures and specific information about refugee employment levels). Indeed available figures are largely based on estimations. In terms of providing an overall picture, Home Office estimates that the UK received 71,700 asylum applications in 2001, which constituted an 11% decrease compared to 2000 (Refugee Council, 2005b). However, these figures did not include children and only took account of the 'principal applicant'. Figures from the Home Office in 2002 (3rd quarter) reveal that 11% of decisions on asylum applications resulted in a refugee status, whilst 25% resulted in ELR and 64% in a refusal by

1 The legal framework is also constituted by: the Immigration Acts: Immigration Act 1971, Immigration Act 1987, Immigration Act 1988, Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993, Asylum and Immigration Act 1996, Immigration and Asylum 1999; secondary legislation concerning more generally immigration (Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules of 23 May 1994 and August 1996); Asylum Appeals Rules of 1996; The Dublin Convention (source: Refugee Council)

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the Home Office. In 2001, the percentage of appeals accepted was 23% and 75% were dismissed (2% withdrawn) (Refugee Council, 2005c). Data relating to applicants’ countries of origin indicate that in 2002, 19% of applications were made by people coming from Iraq, 9% from Zimbabwe and 9% from Somalia (Refugee Council, 2005c). According to the Audit Commission (2000), the majority of refugees and asylum seekers who enter the UK live in London (85%) but it should be emphasised that this figure has now changed and the dispersal regions have a larger share since the Dispersal Policy. The Health of Londoners project identified between 240,000 and 280,000 refugees and asylum seekers living in London, although it should also be noted that these figures relied on estimations (Refugee Health in London, 1999). 2.3 Refugee Employment in Britain A major national survey conducted in 1995 by the Home Office (1995) indicated that refugees encounter huge difficulties in terms of employment. This issue is not limited to the UK - indeed it has been noted across Europe (European Union Green Paper, 2004) that refugees and asylum seekers experience acute unemployment. Currently UK refugee unemployment rates are recorded as running at six times the national average (with refugee unemployment rates at around 36%). But even higher levels have been recorded among specific refugee communities (DWP, 2004)2. Drawing on labour force survey data (and a sample of 400 respondents), research conducted in 2002 for the Department of Work and Pensions indicated that only 29% of refugees were working, compared with 60% of the minority ethnic population and 94% of white/indigenous population (Rosenkranz, 2002: 90). Other smaller studies have recorded unemployment levels within their samples as high as 75% (cited in ICAR, 2003). It has also been suggested that refugees and asylum seekers in London are more likely to find employment compared to those who are living elsewhere in the country (Home Office 1995; London Research Centre 1999). For example, the Home Office survey recorded 52% of respondents in London as being employed, compared to 27% of those living elsewhere in Britain. In spite of this difference, the unemployment rates among refugees remain a key cause for concern: even in London, 51.0% of refugees are unemployed compared to a rate of 5.6% unemployment across the entire London population. Furthermore, asylum seekers are even more likely to be unemployed compared to those who have been granted refugees status (London Research Centre, 1999).3 As the work by Bloch (2004) and Rosenkranz (2002) also points out, unemployment rates among refugees and asylum seekers are also differentiated in terms of a range of other factors, such as length of stay in the UK, level of qualification and gender. Those who have been resident in the UK longer are more likely to have employment, and those with UK qualifications are more likely to be employed. More refugee men are recorded as in employment than women (Bloch 2004 see also Refugee Women’s Association, 2002; Dumper 2002) Evidence also suggests that refugees who do manage to enter the labour market remain under-employed and are more likely to enter employment beneath their level of skills/ qualifications in the low- or un-skilled sector, where they are more likely to experience poor

2 Schuster & Solomos (2004) provide an excellent historical mapping of New Labour policy and rhetoric in relation to race, immigration and asylum pre- and through first and second terms in power. 3 This inequality is recognised and there are plans to work on this issue. See the Regional Development Plan: ESF Objective 3 for London 2000-2006. The Objective 3 Programme aims primarily to tackle barriers to labour market participation experienced by the unemployed and the socially excluded. See http://www.go-london.gov.uk/european_structural_funds/objective_3/index.asp

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working conditions (Bloch 2004; Rosenkranz 2002, Dumper, 2002, Crawley et al 2004). As the extensive research conducted by Alice Bloch points out:

‘Refugees often face high barriers to employment, experience high rates of unemployment, are frequently underemployed, receive low rates of pay, and work under poor terms and conditions’ (Bloch 2004:5).

Hence the urgent need to improve access to employment among refugees is recognised at both a European and national policy level (e.g. European Commission 2003; DWP 2003). The importance of this task is not merely economic, but has been predominantly framed as an issue of social cohesion and social integration. For example, the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) states that 'lack of access to the labour market during the reception phase seriously hinders integration in the long-term'. (ECRE, 1999:2). Similarly, Bloch notes that ‘… getting refugees into employment, and particularly into employment that matches their skills, is one of the most important aspects of the process of integration’ (Bloch 2004: p.5). Colic-Peisker (2003:17) further agrees that employment ‘seems to be the single most important aspect of successful resettlement and social inclusion in general’.

2.4 Research on barriers to employment among refugees Various studies have been conducted to try and understand the experiences of refugees and asylum seekers in relation to accessing employment. Studies have been conducted with refugees (e.g. Home Office, 1995) and with both refugees and asylum seekers (e.g. London Research Centre 1999). Most of this work has tended to focus on the experiences of individual refugees and/or asylum seekers, and attention has been drawn to respondents’ lack of a range of skills, attributes and resources which hinder them within the job market. For example, a number of studies (e.g. London Research Centre 1999; Brown 1997; Sargeant et al, 1999; Bloch 2004; mbA, 1999) have flagged up how refugees’ and/or asylum seekers’ limited English Language proficiency, lack of confidence, lack of knowledge about UK systems (particularly the employment system) and lack of (UK) qualifications, references and work experience can all act as substantial barriers to employment. These factors are further compounded by refugees experiencing poor health, family responsibilities, a lack of childcare. Where wider (e.g. institutional or structural) issues are recognised, attention has been drawn to the role of the ‘benefit trap’, employers’ lack of recognition of overseas qualifications and the lack of accessible, relevant advice and guidance for refugees. Much of the existing research on barriers to employment among refugees and asylum seekers can be identified as adopting a ‘human capital’ approach, focusing for example on individuals’ skills and capabilities (Rosenkranz 2002). As Rosenkranz argues, a human capital approach can be criticised for adopting a deficit view of refugees, because the sources of barriers to employment are located within refugees themselves (e.g. as the result of poor English language proficiency, cultural gaps or inadequate training and qualifications). Consequently, such approaches tend to conceive of responses in terms of increasing human capital among refugees (e.g. providing more education, information, skills or training – see Bretell 2000:15), rather than, for example, addressing wider inequalities such as institutional or structural issues and biases that may affect the employment of refugees. Human capital approaches have thus attracted criticism for pathologising refugees and locating the ‘blame’ (and hence responsibility for action and change) within disadvantaged groups themselves. Furthermore, by failing to recognise wider inequalities, the human capital approach assumes a naïve meritocracy in society and ‘implies a low “internal rate of return” (i.e. wages) for refugees on grounds of poor productive capacity [and] has often been used to explain the presence of other inequalities in society, for example the status of women’ (Rosenkrantz

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2002: 7). The human capital approach also fails to understand the role of social and political processes and the role of policy in creating unequal patterns of employment and social disadvantage (e.g. see Schuster & Solomos 2004; Levitas 2004). Rather, Rosenkranz (1999) argues, refugee unemployment rates have been affected by wider changes in UK employment rates and changes in the structure of the economy (e.g. reductions in manufacturing and construction sectors, which have traditionally provided substantial employment for non-European workers). Some studies have recognised the role of institutional and structural barriers, such as the role of employers and issues around advice and guidance. Rosenkranz (2002) for instance, acknowledges the role of institutional discrimination in relation to the lack of recognition of overseas qualifications. Brown, (1997:38) also identifies how employers’ prejudiced attitudes towards refugees and asylum seekers (e.g. believing that they have little or no skills) can lead them to regard refugee candidates as ‘high risk’. Examples of unconscious bias against refugee applicants have also been highlighted where employers set requirements that can only be met by ‘home’ applicants. Inadequacies within the legal and political system have also been noted (e.g. mbA Training Research and Development Ltd, 1999). In terms of examining the role of ethnic, racial and religious factors upon the employment of refugees and asylum seekers, studies have tended to focus on ‘cultural barriers’ and/or issues of ‘cultural difference’. For example, studies have discussed how refugees’ lack of awareness of UK culture (e.g. in terms of writing CVs and ‘selling’ themselves at interview) and cultural differences (such as being scared of providing personal information on application forms due to previous experiences of oppressive regimes) can hinder their chances of success (Sargeant 1999; mbA 1999). Brown (1997) also notes how cultural differences can be misinterpreted by employers – for example a display of deferential respect (that may be valued in some cultures) may be interpreted as lack of confidence by some employers. The role of racism and racial discrimination is mentioned by a number of studies (The London Research Centre 1999; Sargeant et al 1999, RETAS 2002; Bloch 1996, 2004; MbA 1999; Brown 1997; Stewart 2003) but it has tended to be primarily discussed within the context of a range of other issues. For example, Sargeant et al (1999) note that black women refugees reported experiencing racial prejudice and felt that employers were more hostile when they knew their country of origin. Bloch similarly mentions that employer discrimination acts as a barrier to employment (Bloch 2004:26), claiming that ‘the longer [refugees] had been in the country, the more likely it was that they would specify discrimination, either racial or specifically against refugees, as the main barrier to employment’. But like others, Bloch (1996) does not engage in any detailed or explicit discussion about the nature and forms that such racism can take (e.g. individual or institutional/ised forms). Furthermore, Bloch (2004) makes no specific reference to racism in her summing up of the key issues effecting refugee employment (2004:5). MbA (1999:6) likewise note that there was a degree of racism and a fear of cultural difference among the employers that they interviewed, but again, the issues are not developed or expanded upon in any detail. Stewart, however, in her study (2003) of refugee doctors discusses the ‘difficult question’ of racism, pondering whether the ‘problem is purely racial or directed towards all overseas qualified doctors’ (2003:12 emphasis added). She reveals ‘[U]ndoubtedly many refugees in my research reported problems and this could have been caused by the colour of their skin’, however, she claimed that other white European refugees also reported incidence of discrimination. A GLA (2001) study found that ‘discrimination on the ground of status was mentioned by refugees as more of a problem than racial factors’ (emphasis added). As noted above, Brown (1997) found that employers often cited requirements that can only be met by ‘home’ applicants, which constitutes a form of indirect discrimination as defined by

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the 1976 Race Relations Act (CRE, 1997). ICAR (2004) argues that ‘there is insufficient evidence to judge whether employers may be discriminating against refugees on racial grounds’ (emphasis added). However, they go on to highlight that employers often identify key problems such as confusing permission to work documentation, the negative public image of refugees and lack of familiarity with qualifications and work experience. The Race Relations Act 1976, indicates that ‘indirect discrimination involves the imposition of a condition or requirement which applies equally to everyone but is harder for people from particular racial groups to satisfy, and which, when balanced against the discrimination which results cannot be justified’ (CRE, 1997). From this, it is suggested that what many studies cite as a ‘barrier’ to employment might be better understood as a form of discrimination. Indeed, a Home Office report (2000) acknowledges that racism is a major barrier to refugees fulfilling their full potential. Concerns with equality and discrimination in relation to minority ethnic and migrant groups are also flagged up in the ‘Lisbon agenda’, a European Union green paper, which expresses the need to challenge stereotypes of disadvantaged groups, including migrants (May 2004: 15). The employment task force, chaired by Wim Kok, has recently urged member states to do more to promote the integration of migrants and non EU nationals in the labour market including measures to combat discrimination in the workforce. ECRE (1999:12) advises that European governments should introduce ‘legislation and racial harassment monitoring systems to fight discrimination in the labour market and promote equal opportunity.’ In this report, we undertake a detailed consideration of the ways in which issues of racism and discrimination (in relation to race, ethnicity, religious and political belief) may impact on the employment of refugees and asylum seekers. 2.5 Race, Racism and Refugees in UK Policy Discourse: From Tebbit’s ‘cricket test’ to Blunkett’s ‘citizenship test’ It has been widely noted that refugees and asylum seekers are the ongoing subjects of considerable racism, abuse and disdain within popular culture and the UK media (e.g. see ICAR, 2004; MORI, 20024; mbA, 1999:12). The local and national print media in particular have been strongly criticised for "consistent inflammatory attacks" on asylum seekers and migrants (Black, 2001). However, as Schuster and Solomos (2004) also highlight, current UK policy has impacted negatively on the lives of refugees and asylum seekers, in both direct and indirect ways and has played a key role in sustaining and generating such hostility and racism/s against refugees and asylum-seekers. As Rosenkranz (2002:93) also argues, politicians from all parties have contributed to ‘the negative representation of refugees by the media [and] the xenophobic exploitation of the asylum seekers threat’. This political opportunism has, in turn, exacerbated the situation for refugees and asylum seekers looking for work. The ECRI (European Commission against Racism and Intolerance) report (2001) also adds that "many politicians have contributed to, or at least not adequately prevented, public debate taking on an increasingly intolerant line with at times racist and xenophobic overtones’. The situation is such that, of all 15 member states, the EU Racism and Xenophobia Monitoring Centre in Vienna has identified Britain as the most hostile to political refugees (Black, 2001).

4 The MORI SRI survey found that the public predominantly associates negative words and phrases with media coverage of asylum. Overall, 85% of respondents associated negative words with media reporting. Two-thirds (64%) said that the media most use the term "illegal immigrant" when referring to refugees and asylum seekers, yet refugees and asylum seekers are not in the UK illegally. Other words commonly associated with media coverage were "desperate", "foreigners", "bogus" and "scroungers".

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The problematic representation of refugees and asylum seekers within policy has been noted within both European and UK policy, in which refugees are often conceptualised and represented as potential threats to social cohesion (Black, 2001, Schuster and Solomos, 2004; Hansard 2001; Hills & Stewart 2005). As Schuster & Solomos (2004:267) argue, despite making some positive developments in the field of race relations and equality during their administration (e.g. commissioning the Macpherson Report, 1999 and the Race Relation (Amendment) Act, 2000), the British New Labour administration has displayed a recent ‘hardening of attitudes towards asylum-seekers’. This response has been influenced by the administration’s wider commitment to new managerialist approaches (e.g. Clarke & Newman 1997; Trow 1994), in which themes of management, control and toughness are emphasised. Consequently, discursive emphasis has been placed on the need for ‘managed migration’ of refugees (Levitas 2004) and the adoption of ‘harder’ policies, such as the 2002 Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act and the 2003 ‘New Vision for Refugees’, which its proponents claim aims to send ‘a tough signal’ to potential asylum seekers (as proposed by the previous Home Secretary, David Blunkett, Hansard 2001). This ‘tough line’ is further encapsulated by the exclusion of refugees and asylum seekers from mainstream equalities legislation, such as the RRAA 2000 (See section 19, which excludes immigration, asylum and refugee from its remit, Schuster & Solomos 2004:273). As Bloch highlights, there are considerable tensions evident between the commitment to policy objectives of facilitating the integration of refugees on the one hand and the placing of ever increasing restrictions on access to the labour market for asylum seekers, on the other (Bloch 2004:9). Thus, Schuster and Solomos argue, New Labour policy has directly fed in to creating and maintaining racisms and prejudice against refugees and asylum seekers:

‘It has become evident that rather than questioning and challenging some of the press and public misperceptions around this question, New Labour has, if anything, stoked them […] Perhaps the most worrying feature of the last six years in Britain is that New Labour has not merely sustained, but has heightened a climate of fear about refugees and asylum seekers, and has increased the fear and racist violence suffered by these groups themselves’ (Schuster & Solomos 2004: 283).

We would agree that refugees and asylum seekers in the UK are currently positioned within a popular discourse of derision, in which their legitimacy, capabilities and value to society are all questioned and denigrated. This derision can be mapped across from sensationalised media panics about refugees and asylum seekers as being ‘bogus’ (see The Express, 2004a; the Daily Mail, 2004a), ‘scroungers’ (see The Daily Star, 2004a; The Daily Star 2004b and ‘terrorists’ (The Daily Mail, 2004b; The Express 2004b), through to more subtle- yet equally invidious- policy concerns with the ‘allegiance’ and ‘authenticity’ of refugees and asylum seekers. Hence, contemporary policy discourses – such as David Blunkett’s instigation of the ‘citizenship test’5– contain echoes of historical panics from the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s surrounding the immigration of minority ethnic communities. For example, traces of the British politician Enoch Powell’s infamous racist rhetoric from his 1968 speech, in which he decried the ‘swamping’ of British cultures by alien elements6, live on in (the then- Home Secretary) David Blunkett’s outcry of the ‘swamping’ of schools in Britain by asylum seeker children (BBC News, 2002). Furthermore, Blunkett’s (2002) proposal to introduce an oath or ‘citizens pledge’ for applicants who apply for British citizenship contains echoes of the then Conservative politician Norman Tebbit’s notorious ‘cricket test’ of allegiance for South Asian and Caribbean communities (in which he questioned which national team minority ethnic

5 See The Guardian, 2002 and the white paper, ‘Secure Borders, Safe Haven’ 2002 6 Further in 1978 Margaret Thatcher claimed that Britain was being ‘swamped by an alien culture’ (Travis, 2002)

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groups would support7. Based on recommendations of Crick (2003), new arrivals to the UK will be expected to take English lessons and will have to demonstrate an ability to speak English and pledge allegiance as a condition of gaining citizenship. Whilst the report by Sir Bernard Crick recommends for ‘British citizenship to embrace positively the diversity of background, culture and faiths that living in modern Britain involves’ (Crick, 2003:10), the emphasis seems to be on new arrivals learning about British culture, rather than a more two-way process of adaption and understanding. It might also be suggested that whilst David Blunkett has stated that his proposals will help combat racism, they are clearly located within concerns about increasing social cohesion (Guardian, 2002) and the (imagined) risks posed by new arrivals, rather than trying to reduce racism/s within wider society to asylum seekers and refugees. (‘The more we all know about each other, […] taking pride in our country, the less likely are serious problems to arise …’, Crick, 2003:10). The impact of the above upon the employment of refugees and asylum seekers in Britain is summed up by Rosenkranz, who argues that this combination of negative media, political and policy discourse upon refugees and asylum seekers has resulted in 'the ideological construction of asylum-seekers and refugees as a marginal, low-skill, unreliable and problematic source of labour' (Rosenkranz, 2002: 93).

7 Norman Tebbit, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times in 1990, suggested that immigrants and their children could not show loyalty to Britain until they supported the England team at cricket (Carvel, 2004).

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SECTION THREE: THEORETICAL APPROACH 3.1 Introduction Douglas Massey et al highlight that in the field of migration research there is no agreed theoretical basis from which to work:

‘social scientists do not approach the subject of immigration from a shared paradigm but from a variety of competing theoretical viewpoints fragmented across disciplines, regions and ideologies’ (Massey et al., 1994:700-1).

Consequently, they argue that ‘research on the subject tends to be narrow, often inefficient and characterised by duplication, miscommunication, reinvention and bickering about fundamentals’. They claim that only when a common theoretical and conceptual groundwork is achieved will research be able to progress usefully. There is a considerable amount of applied research and work being undertaken within the field of refugees and access to employment. Due to its nature and focus, such work tends to lack a clear theoretical framework. As detailed in the previous section, criticisms have also been made of ‘human capital’ approaches which fail to take account of wider, structural issues (e.g. how the labour market is constructed in a way that disadvantages some groups). While structural issues are often acknowledged in report recommendations (see mbA, 1999; Brown, 1997; Bloch, 2004; Sherifaw and Hagos, 2002), these are often not theorised. As Brettell highlights, there is a large gap between micro, individual level analyses and large scale, macro level theory in the field of migration (2000:5), which may also be applied to the field of refugee employment research. Of course there are exceptions: Rosenkranz (2002), following authors such as Douglas Massey (1994) and Jamie Peck (1996), argues that the labour market is divided into a primary sector and a secondary sector, between which mobility is virtually non-existent. The primary sector is characterised by good jobs, high wages, good working incentive/ conditions/ career advancement and the secondary sector is characterised by poor jobs, inferior status, low wages and poor working conditions. The labour force, he argues is accordingly segmented, with women, BMEs (including refugees), young, elderly and disabled being over represented in the marginal strata. Hence, the primary sector is essentially reserved for particular members of the population and there are structural barriers in place which protect and produce the status quo. This report attempts to link micro-level, individual views and experiences with broader structural issues, including the role of social, institutional and institutionalized (Levitas 2004) inequalities and recognising how cultures of inequality can be produced, perpetuated and reinforced via policy. To this aim, we employ a (feminist) post-structural theoretical framework that is informed by critical sociological theorising of ‘race’/ethnicity and racism/s and the sociological work of Pierre Bourdieu. This approach is detailed below. 3.2 A (Feminist) Post-Structuralist Approach This project has been conducted within a (feminist) post-structuralist framework and has utilised a discursive (e.g. Burman, 1994), social constructionist approach (Gergen 1985) to data analysis. Broadly speaking, this approach rejects positivistic notions of objective truth, facts and reality and proposes instead that the social world is socially and discursively produced, or constructed. Hence our research acknowledges that there are multiple truths and accounts to be highlighted. The adoption of a feminist post-structuralist approach reflects a commitment to ‘weak relativism’ (Gill 1995) though the claiming of situated knowledges (Haraway `1988). Such an approach provides a way to avoid slipping into pure(or ‘extreme’) relativism when developing understandings of social inequalities e.g. of race, class, gender. Our project is therefore concerned with analysing and deconstructing social actions, categories and concepts (Bradley 1996). Full discussion of the theoretical approach of the lead author can be found in Archer (2004).

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3.3. Theorising ‘Race’ and ‘Ethnicity’: A key focus of this report concerns the role of ‘race’, ethnicity, religion and political belief in relation to un/under employment among refugees. This requires some discussion of ongoing debates about how best to theorise and understand the nature of contemporary inequalities. Sociological thinking and theorising on ‘race’, ethnicity, culture and identity draws attention to the multi-faceted nature of ‘racial’ inequalities. Race is no longer recognised as a valid scientific typology, and the notion of any biological basis to race has been discredited (Miles1982, 1989). Post-structuralist thinking thus understands race, like other social categories (such as class and gender) as socially constructed. To reflect this disruption of the biological basis of race and to highlight the social construction of racialised identities and inequalities, it is often used as ‘race’. However, terminology remains a contentious and difficult area, with suggestions made by Brah (1992) that notions of difference and diversity may be useful for taking debates forward, as they give more weight to ethnicity and culture, as opposed to ‘race’. (Brah 1992). However, as sociologists also highlight, whilst the concept of race has been discredited, it is important to remember that the effects of ‘race’ and racism still have very real effects in people’s lives (Bradley, 1996:121). The terms ‘ethnicity’ and ‘ethnic group’ has also grown in usage, primarily as a means for drawing attention to the role of culture (as opposed to biology). Stuart Hall (1992, 1988) argues that popular use of the term ethnicity has emerged from particular social and historical conditions8. Hall moved thinking away from simplistic dichotomies (e.g. of black and white) towards understandings of ethnicity as fluid and complex, recognising differences within ethnic categories as well as between them (Bradley, 1996). Hall treats ethnicity as socially, historically, and politically located struggles over meaning, representation and identity, which allows us to move beyond a notion of ethnicity as cultural possession or ascribed through birth. ‘The term ethnicity acknowledges the place of history, language, and culture in the construction of subjectivity and identity, as well as the fact that all discourse is placed, positioned, situated and all knowledge is contextual’ (Hall, 1992: 257). For Hall, ethnicity is inextricably linked with identity, and is multi faceted. Hall views the self as fragmented and incomplete, hence multiple selves are produced through a combination of discursive, psychic and emotional processes. Identities are forever incomplete, in process, and ‘becoming’ – they are never fixed or finally ‘achieved’ (Hall 1992). Furthermore, Hall argues, identity is unstable and is constantly needing to be made and remade, contested and asserted (Hall, 1990). Hence we can understand ethnic and racial identities as ideological constructs (Anthias and Yuval-Davis, 1983) that are not fixed, but fluid, contested and socially and discursively produced. Identities/ ethnicities of ‘black’ and ‘white’ are not ‘facts’ but are unstable psychic, cultural and political narratives: “something, constructed, told, spoken, not simply found” (Hall 1987: 116). Hall’s seminal proposition of ‘new ethnicities’ also provides a key and important challenge to uni-dimensional notions of black identity. Critical race theorists have continued to develop conceptualisations that seek to move beyond the homogenisation and reification of ethnic minority groups, highlighting cross-cutting and intersecting aspects of identity (such as class, gender, age) and developing models that can account for differences within ethnic groups as well as between them. The notion of ‘hybridity’ (Bhabha 1990) is widely used to describe contemporary ethnic identities in a way that captures the fragmented, multi-dimensional nature of social life. Modood et al (1994) have since developed this thinking further, proposing alternatively ‘hyphenated’ 8 See Harvey, D (1989) The Condition of Post Modernity Oxford: Blackwell for a more substantive discussion.

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identities. Current thinking, such as that outlined above, allows us to examine multiple aspects of refugees’ identities and experiences. It also helps us to understand how certain groups (like refugees) can become ‘ethnicized’ and constructed as a racialised group by the majority group population (Anthias and Yuval-Davis 1992:9) For example, ethnic groups may be differently constructed in terms of religious, racial or national categorisations across different contexts, time and space. As Anthias and Yuval-Davis (1992: 9) argue, ‘migrant labourers may become ethnicized through state legislation and by the way they are identified by the indigenous population’. Racism/s The theorisation of ‘race’/ethnicity and identity interlinks with understandings of racial and ethnic inequalities and racism. As Martin Barker (1981) has argued, older forms of scientific racism were organised around the notion of biological or genetic differences, but these have been replaced by what he terms ‘the new racism’, which is based on the notions of cultural incompatibility (see also Solomos 1989; Mac an Ghaill 1999, among others). However, as it has also been argued, it is not simply the case that one form of racism has replaced another, rather attention has been drawn to the need to recognise and engage with multiple forms of racism, or what might be termed ‘racism/s’ (Cohen, 1988). Racism/s are multidimensional, hence ‘[t]he explication of racisms cannot be undertaken purely with reference to ethnic or race phenomena’ (Anthias and Yuval-Davis 1992:3). Contemporary racialised processes interact in complex ways with other categories of social difference, thus racism/s may be differently constructed and experienced across axes of social class, ethnicity, gender, age and so forth (e.g. Bhavnani & Phoenix 1994; Mac an Ghaill, 1999). Racism/s may be constituted around negative attributions given to culture, ethnic identity, personality as well as ‘racialised’ aspects of identities. Religious groups may also experience racism/s, e.g. anti-Muslim racism/s in Britain often emphasise the ‘non civilised’ character of Islam as a religion and way of life (Anthias and Yuval-Davis, 1992). Cultural forms of racism/s can include the ‘experiences of migrant ethnic groups, refugees and so on, which construct them as inferior, but not on the premise of a supposed racial categorisation, but as cultural, political or national outsiders and undesirables.’ (Anthias and Yuval-Davis 1992:11). Such discourses perpetuate racist ideas, constitute hierarchies and can become deeply embedded in social life. Hence racism/s may be both discursive and material in nature (Bhabha 1990b, Hall, 1992a). Racism/s are not only enacted by individuals and groups, but can be generated and sustained by social structures, processes, organisations and institutions. As Cohen explains, racism/s operate as modes of exclusion, inferiorisation, subordination, and exploitation (1988:13), which can be enacted across interpersonal, social and community/ societal levels. Recently in Britain, attention has been drawn to the issue of institutional racism. The Macpherson Report, published following the murder of the young black student Stephen Lawrence, defines institutional racism as:

‘The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people’ (Macpherson 1999: 28).

Responsibility for addressing institutional racism has also been firmly placed upon public sector organisations, as set out in the Race Relations Amendment Act (2000). Bourdieuian Theory In addition to drawing on sociological theorising around ethnic/racialised identities and inequalities, we also make use of the work of Pierre Bourdieu (e.g. 1986b; 1990) in our analyses. In particular, we draw upon Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and capital to help us

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understand the ways in which refugees and asylum seekers come to be disadvantaged in the UK labour market. An excellent discussion of the potential and uses of habitus can be found in Reay (2004), along with other papers in a Special Issue that focuses on Bourdieuian theory. As a brief overview, however, Bourdieu conceptualises habitus as ‘an internalised mental structure through which people deal with the social world’ (Ritzer, 2000:220). It is an ingrained system of perspectives, experiences and predispositions (Reay, 1998: 526) that may be shared between social groups. For Bourdieu, practices are not objectively determined, nor are they the product of free will (Ritzer 2000:530): they involve cultural traditions and habits. A person’s habitus is constituted by both individual and collective histories. Thus for Bourdieu ‘the subject is not the instantaneous ego of a sort of singular cogito, but the individual trace of an entire collective history’ (Bourdieu 1990: 91). While the habitus allows for individual agency it also presupposes individuals towards a certain way of behaving, thus Bourdieu labels his stance ‘constructivist structuralism’ reflecting his focus on the interaction between structure and the way people construct social reality (Ritzer, 2000:531; see also Reay, 2004). For Bourdieu, the habitus generates sets of ‘choices’ constituting lifestyles (Bourdieu, 1986b: 175). For example, in the context of education and schooling, Reay et al (2001) shows how staying or leaving education does not necessarily constitute an active, conscious, rational ‘choice’ for all- staying on may be automatic for the middle classes, whereas leaving or ‘choosing something else’ may be ‘natural’ and common-sense for working class groups (see also Maguire et al, 1999). Thus people’s differential social positions in relation to risk or privilege will constrain and shape the options and ‘choices’ that are possible and thinkable to them. Structural inequalities circumscribe the ‘diversity of options’ open to people from different social backgrounds (Ball et al, 2000:22), or, put simply, disadvantaged groups (such as refugees) may have fewer ‘real’ or possible choices. Bourdieu also draws attention to how the resources that people are able to access can play a key role in structuring the options, choices and opportunities that are available to them. Bourdieu highlights three main forms of capital – cultural, social and economic (although subsequently theorists have developed conceptualisations of e.g. emotional capital, e.g. Reay 2004; Skeggs 2004). Broadly speaking, social capital refers to social networks and relations, specifically the capacity to ‘produce and reproduce lasting, useful relationships that can secure material or symbolic profits’ (Bourdieu 1986a). Cultural capital refers to the knowledge, information and awareness that people may have, for example about societal systems, practices and strategies. It inflects people’s understandings about what is possible and desirable and this influences choices and actions (Archer 2003:17). Possession of the ‘right’ kind (ie. dominant, valued forms) of cultural capital will enable those individuals and groups to maximise their chances due to their implicit understanding and feel for the ‘rules of the game’. As detailed at the start of this section, this theoretical framework has guided the design and data analysis within this project. The following section provides details of the methodology adopted.

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SECTION FOUR: METHODOLOGY The study was funded as part of an EQUAL development partnership (the SEQUAL partnership) and was conducted between May 2002 and December 2004. The research took place in London, where 240,000 to 280,000 of refugees and asylum seekers are currently recorded as residing (Audit Commission, 2000). The study was qualitative in nature and used semi-structured interviews with a sample of individual refugees and asylum seekers, employers and with organisations providing employment advice and guidance to refugees. The following sections in this chapter provide additional detail about the fieldwork conducted with each of the three groups of interviewees. All respondents’ names have been anonymised and pseudonyms have been assigned. The details of participating organisations have also been anonymised where appropriate. All interviews were conducted in English. This obviously had an impact on the potential sample of respondents in various ways. However the decision to conduct all interviews in English largely reflected the practical constraints on the scope of the project. It also ensured, though, that only respondents who had a reasonable degree of fluency in English were interviewed, which facilitated a closer focus on aspects of discrimination faced by refugees, as opposed, for example, to the practical constraints faced by those who cannot speak any English at all. Interviews were conducted by members of the research team9, all of whom were women. In terms of the ethnicity of interviewers, five were white (3 white UK and 2 white European) and one was black African Caribbean. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. All data have been anonymised and pseudonyms have been ascribed to interviewees. Data were analysed with the assistance of NVivo qualitative data analysis software, in line with the theoretical framework outlined in Section Three. 4.1 Interviews with Refugees and Asylum seekers Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 refugees and asylum-seekers (11 men and 11 women). Of these, 9 held refugee status, 2 held British citizenship, 2 had indefinite leave to remain (ILR) and 3 had exceptional leave to remain (ELR) (data were not offered by 6 respondents). Respondents were recruited on the basis that they had lived for at least 2 years in the UK, and either held a work permit or had applied for one. Participants were sampled on the basis that they had a work permit or had applied for one. We attempted to obtain relatively even numbers of men and women representing a range of ages, countries of origin and level of qualifications. Respondents were recruited from the client lists of refugee organisations, including RAGU. Half of the sample were drawn from RAGU client lists, and half were accessed via other refugee organisations10. In total, 13 organisations were approached and of these, eight were able to provide individuals for interview (34 individuals were approached, of whom 22 agreed to participate). Respondents’ ages ranged between 26-48 years. 10 respondents had children, of whom 3 were single parents. In terms of educational and qualification levels, 1 woman and 1 man were recorded as having ‘no education’, 3 participants had secondary education, 16 had bachelors degrees or equivalent and 1 held a Masters level qualification11.

9 Louise Archer, Uvanney Maylor, Ute Kowazik, Sheila Heard, Louise Salmon and Marie Pierre Moreau 10 These included general refugee advice, education and training providers, a law centre, a volunteering organisation and Iranian, Kurdish and African community organisations. 11 Despite attempts to get a broad range of levels of qualifications, the majority of respondents who agreed to participate had at least degree level qualifications.

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Half of the interviewees had arrived in Britain within the last six years (between the late 1990s and early 2000s) and the remainder had lived in Britain around ten years (arriving in the early- to mid-1990s). One respondent had been in the country 15 years (having arrived in 1989). In terms of participants’ countries of origin: 10 were from Africa, 10 from the Middle East/Asia, 1 from Europe and 1 from South America.12. In terms of their current level of employment, overall 8 (36%) were employed and 14 (64%) were unemployed. However, there were clear gender differences within this figure, as 9 (82%) of the women were unemployed as compared to 5 (45%) of the men who were unemployed. Only 2 women were in paid work (18%) but 6 (55%) men were in paid work. One woman and two men were working below their qualified status. All participants’ travel expenses were paid and they were recompensed for their time and participation in the study with £20 book vouchers. 4.2 Interviews with employers As stated by the London Research Centre (1999), the views of employers are an under-researched area. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 representatives from 10 different employing organisations, of which, 2 were recruitment firms. Employers were recruited via RAGU company contact lists.13 Of the firms represented, 2 were major private employers (retail and private health insurance), 3 were public authorities (health and regional/local government)14 and 3 were voluntary sector organisations (housing, NGO, umbrella organisation). Of the 2 recruitment agencies interviewed one was a not-for-profit organisation. Both recruitment firms were small organisations employing less than 15 employees. Employer interviews were conducted predominantly with managers and Human Resources (HR) staff. Interviewees included: 3 HR managers, 1 HR Officer; 5 general managers, 1 Assistant Director, and one Company Director. In terms of interviewees’ gender, there were 7 women and 4 men. Respondents were also asked to self-ascribe their ethnic background, and the sample comprised: 1 Asian, 3 black/African Caribbean and 7 white British respondents. 4.3 Interviews with support organisations Interviews were also conducted with 10 representatives from 7 organisations providing support and advice for refugees with respect to accessing employment. Our sample of selected organisations varied from very small organisations employing two members of staff to a large partnership involving many refugee community organisations. The funding sources for these organisations varied depending on the size and status of organisations. We

12 Specific numbers were: Algeria 1, Angola 1, Central Africa 1, Cameroon 1, Columbia 1, Eritrea 1, Ethiopia 2, Iran 5, Iraq 4, Ivory Coast 1, Pakistan 1, Serbia 1, Somalia 1, Sudan 1. 13 The RAGU list of employers contained organisations with whom they had previously worked and details of those who RAGU were in the preliminary stages of negotiation or contact regarding work placement schemes for refugees and asylum seekers. All companies were approached to be interviewed about their views of the employability of refugees and asylum seekers. Those who consented to be interviewed included organisations who had, and those who had not, previously worked with RAGU. An additional benefit derived from the interviews with organisations who had not previously worked with RAGU were that the interviews provided an additional impetus and interest in the schemes on the part of the employers. 14 Four large private sector employers declined to take part.

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endeavoured to include various types of organisations representing this sector. All agencies provided employment and training advice for various groups including Refugees and Asylum Seekers, Minority Ethnic groups and/ or the general public. These interviews were designed to provide additional context and information to support the substantive analyses from refugees and employers (which constitute the main focus of the study). These comprised 2 refugee employment/ training advice organisations, 1 partnership organisation between refugee communities and the public sector, 1 Black and Minority Ethnic employment/ training advice organisation, 1 general employment/training advice organisation, 1 specific Minority Ethnic community organisation, and 1 Refugee Community Organisation. The individuals interviewed were: 1 director, 1 chair and head of economic development, 5 project/ programme managers, 2 employment advisors and 1 branch manager, of which 6 were female and 4 male. Respondents’ ethnicities reflected a variety of backgrounds, including white, Middle Eastern and Black African.

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SECTION FIVE: THE VIEWS AND EXPERIENCES OF REFUGEES AND ASYLUM SEEKERS SEEKING EMPLOYMENT Across the board, all refugee respondents recounted severe difficulties in accessing employment in the UK. As the following analyses will illustrate, barriers to employment were experienced as complex and multiple – with clusters of factors combining to exclude refugees from accessing employment, particularly forms of paid work that were appropriate to their skills, interests and experiences. This complex intermeshing of factors was recognised and summed up by various refugee and community organisations - as Emwa Awan (director of a refugee agency) put it, “it’s the whole package”. Sara Melling (manager at a refugee employment agency) expressed a similar view:

“Again it’s the whole aspect of employment culture, it’s about having to attend interviews and people are not used to selling themselves at interviews or often people, a Masters certificate was a passport to get a job in some countries but it’s the whole thought of selling yourself not just on your qualifications but on your abilities. Also the lack of work, UK work experience, employers don’t recognise overseas work experience as valid so - everything really! You could go on and on”.

This section discusses the views and experiences of refugees and asylum seekers in relation to finding employment and the experiences of those who have managed to enter employment. Section 5.1 begins by detailing the range of barriers that refugees experienced in relation to finding a job. Issues are identified are discussed under the headings: Personal, social and economic issues; Knowledge, information and advice; Qualification and credentials; and Structural issues. Section 5.2 considers refugees’ reactions and responses to the barriers they encounter seeking employment. Section 5.3 identifies the factors that refugees feel have helped them to find/access employment. In Section 5.4 we discuss the experiences of those refugees who have found paid employment, paying particular attention to retention and progression issues.

5.1 Refugees’ Perceived Barriers to Employment Personal, social and economic issues Refugees and asylum seekers were clearly disadvantaged within the labour market because they experienced high levels of personal, social and economic risk and vulnerability within their lives. For example, many were experiencing (or had suffered from) precarious living situations, for example lacking a permanent home or place to live of their own. Shanny, for example, had to live with a friend for a year before she was formally housed (she was also pregnant during this time). Many also had had to contend with living under a cloud of uncertainty whilst awaiting the outcome of lengthy official processes:

“Oh - it’s not the word I am supposed to say but you feel like you’re in prison, yeah. You feel - I used to feel that way because you never know what’s gonna happen the next day you know? They don’t tell you anything, they don’t send you letter, ..... six years was quite a long, long, long time” (Catrina, from Angola).

“You don’t know what’s gonna happen to you, you don’t feel like doing anything, because you never know, like your life is stuck somewhere, that’s how you feel you know, you feel sad, you feel angry, you feel like […] Yeah, you don’t feel right in your mind you know, - because you never know what’s gonna happen to you because it’s not easy to start somewhere and go back to your country , .... like someone is pushing you around, they’re pushing you around you know so you feel like you are rejected so…” (Catrina, from Angola).

Many refugees described how the economic problems that they were experiencing impacted on their ability to access education, training and employment in Britain. This

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ranged from the practical problems associated with trying to open a bank account or securing a loan (particularly when the refugee had fled their previous country without a wide range of paperwork), to the difficulty of a family not being able to afford to pay for further education study. As Ayesha revealed:

“I have had problem because I came here sponsored by my husband, and he is working so he has to pay for the college and it was very expensive so I did not go for college” (Ayesha, from Eritrea).

Although as Farrokh’s quote below indicates, many refugees tried to remain hopeful and put incredible effort into trying to surmount their difficulties:

“No it wasn’t that easy at all. Because none of the banks offered any loan because of my background. So it was a lot of effort, just financing that, saving up, getting a loan from friends and borrowing money from friends and that kind of thing. It is very difficult but it’s not impossible. It is very difficult. If I can say that it’s 60% difficult for British people then it’s definitely 95% difficult for refugees definitely, but it’s not 100%. It’s not impossible. We can just break the ice. We can just prove that if we borrowed that money and offered services it would be paid off. Definitely. As I say it’s a matter of time, a lot of effort and not being disappointed. Optimism is the key word for that”.

For those refugees with children, childcare issues also constituted an additional barrier to employment, particularly as it rendered re- or up-skilling impractical and/or unaffordable.

“And I couldn’t apply for university course, there was all those barriers about you know financial problems, funding, everything and since I got my children I couldn’t you know. I’m a single mum I have two kids in primary school, I have to think about how to manage with all those things about childcare, about you know many things and I said just stay home and look after your children, what can you do” (Nia, from Central Africa)

“Although I had been doing so many courses it still, for the college, they told me how to go to university for four years and to do one year’s training courses as well. That’s five years. And they told me how to go outside London which wasn’t helpful for me because of my family, because I had little daughter and little boy so I couldn’t leave them by themselves” (Daddar, from Iraq)

The lack of affordable childcare and the inflexibility of the educational provision on offer could leave some refugees feeling in a catch-22 situation – unable to afford to study (because they are not in employment) and thus unable to get the necessary language skills or UK qualifications to enable them to enter employment:

“It’s difficult to settle down is quite difficult when you come here with three children. You have a lot of responsibilities you cannot just focus on your own education or going to college and come back. You need to just help your family as well to settle down. You register your children they don’t know any English. You don’t know any English as a refugee until you start to study, and at the same time you are dealing with a lot of problems with your family and that’s why it was difficult” (Nazgol, from Iran).

Without close friends or relatives to help support the family and look after children, refugees like Daddar felt that he could not continue in education:

“So also, I have had no family here to support me and to look after my kids for me, so I was definite to leave the education and to look after the family instead of going to university and finish my education. Yeah, I thought family is more important than to finish my education and it was actually because if you don’t have family in one country then you can’t rely on other people. Yes you can trust your friends, you can

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trust your close friends and close relatives but I had no relatives ever, no relatives or close friends to me who are living next to my home, they were all far away so – yeah”.

In addition to lacking formal advice and guidance about education and employment, refugees felt they lacked the social networks that are both important for finding (and knowing) about employment opportunities and which provide important emotional and interpersonal support during difficult times (see also social isolation section 8.5). For example, Alem, as an artist, was aware of the importance of networking and contacts in his field (“…unless you are a graduate of a certain college [or know a] certain group of people, or what circle you belong to…”). There was an awareness that this form of social capital (Bourdieu 1986a) was common and important across most countries in the world for facilitating access to employment:

“You know, […] it’s about connection. It’s - connection works everywhere in the world, you know. You know, about jobs not only from the newspaper advertisement but you know, from friends, from family, relatives and if somebody can recommend you it’s more trustful. And I can say, you know, it works back home and it works here you know? Those who can get easily job are those who have connections, yes” (Nia, a teacher from Central Africa).

The lack of social capital and networks was felt particularly acutely by refugees who were within a ‘minority of minorities’ within the UK:

“Yes, it was really difficult because there is not, there doesn’t exist Serbian community, it’s people from other countries, you can find Somalians, Rwandans, Latin Americans, there is no Serbians and especially for us who are evangelical Christians we are not members of the local church at all. The minority of minority, minority and I had to make it on my own reading newspapers, leaflets” (Maria, from former Yugoslavia).

Those who did have more established social or community networks found them an invaluable source of support and employment. For example Abdul, an engineer from Iraq, got a job through his brother, working for the same firm. As is detailed more fully in subsequent thematic sections, these personal difficulties were cross cut by issues of language (See Sections 8.3 and 8.1), as many refugees also felt intensely disadvantaged by their English language skills and ability, which many felt constituted a major hurdle to employment. Issue of racism and discrimination (Sections 8.1 and 8.2), Social and geographical isolation (Section 8.5), age (Section 8.6) and physical and mental health (Section 8.4) were also key concerns that impacted on the personal, social and economic vulnerability experienced by many refugees. For example, most of the respondents had experienced considerable trauma as a result of their previous experiences and reasons for migration, which were compounded by the impact of arriving suddenly in a strange and unknown (sometimes hostile) society, with little social support and frequently not fluent in English language or culture. Many refugees thus had to contend with immense psychological pressure and strain, combined with a lack of confidence that was fuelled further by repeated rejection within the job market and a potential loss in professional status. Knowledge and Information Drawing on Bourdieuian theory, it is suggested that a person or group’s possession (or lack) of ‘cultural capital’ (e.g. their knowledge and information of both formal and informal systems and practices in society) will have a profound impact on their potential achievement and success within that society (e.g. Bourdieu 1986b; Byrne & Rodgers 1996; Lareau 1987; Reay et al., 2001). The refugees we interviewed were very aware that they were

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disadvantaged due to their lack of understanding and experience of the UK job market (e.g. how and where to apply for jobs), which was often very different to their countries of origin, and due to cultural differences, such as the ‘taken for granted’, everyday knowledge about British cultural practices. Numerous refugees described the difficulty of cultural adaption to a different society:

“Yes, and - when I arrived here it was very different environment, culture, education, so it was very difficult for me to build myself up without the help […]I found for a start I found it very honestly very different socially, the whole system was different for me so I really needed to get myself acquainted with everything that I thought I knew from scratch including English.” (Sabar, from Iraq).

“You don’t know how to do it you know, you don’t know the environment, you don’t know how to do with nobody, who will guide you what to do, there is no guidance here. Just you come and you - you will be in a street, you don’t know nothing” (Abdul, from Iraq). “Getting some information about this society because we were not only in a new country, we were in a new culture, new continent, new language, new people, everything. So I wanted to get enough information to adapt myself to this society” (Nazgol, from Iran).

This might be understood in sociological terms as the disjuncture arising from when the refugee/asylum-seeker habitus encounters the new, unfamiliar field of the UK job market, which can result in ‘a habitus divided against itself’ (Bourdieu 1999), generating struggles, confusion and strivings to adjust. This lack of knowledge or ‘feel for the game’ was particularly pronounced in relation to the technicalities of the job application process in Britain. Respondents described how the practices that they had been used to in their previous country differed considerably from the UK system. For example, some refugees described how they had been used to automatic progression routes from higher education to state employment, or were only familiar with informal appointment processes. Consequently they had never encountered job application forms or curriculum vitae. As Sabar put it, “some of them even they don’t know how to fill an application form” and many had difficulties knowing how to put together an appropriate CV:

“Yeah, the reason, I am sure a few reasons I thought at the end I knew the reason [why did not get an interview]. The CV was bad you know, [for the] first maybe 70 or maybe 100 [applications] my CV was really bad CV. It wasn’t good CV […] Yeah, and I didn’t know that they paid more attention to the CV when you supply them with CV. When you give them, when you provide them with the CV I didn’t know they would pay too much attention.” (Abdul, from Iraq).

The need for a process of cultural adaption was illustrated by Hamed:

“They fear, they are scared about the job description and person specification, and they don’t know about how the system works in this country you know. Let me give you an example, if you go in winter, if you go to the bath […] the shower, and because outside it is very cold and inside it is very warm it takes you about a few minutes to adapt yourself in the warmth of the environment and for refugees when they come in the society they need the time to adapt themselves in the society, but when they can adapt themselves into society they have the right information” (Hamed, a teacher from Iran)

The interview process was also highlighted as a particularly difficult and alien experience by many refugees, and took considerable time to get used to:

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“Ah…you know having panel of people interviewing you, I’m not used to that I have to be honest, I am not used to that because in Cameroon I was used to sending application form and then you had a response and then you go and start a job, they assess you within three or six months, that’s the procedure so it was really new but I am used to it now, yeah” (Claude, from Cameroon).

In addition to experiencing difficulties negotiating the more formal aspects of the job market, refugees/asylum-seekers were placed at a disadvantage by differing cultural norms and practices. This was often particularly evident during job interviews, when different interpersonal practices between candidates and employers were highlighted. For example, some African refugees described how their cultural practice of ‘not boasting’ about one’s abilities and skills placed them at a disadvantage. Hence Fozia explained how she had not fully described the research experience and training she had received in Sudan because it clashed with the cultural values that she had been brought up with, where talking about oneself was considered showing off/ boasting:

“I mean, in my country you wouldn’t normally speak about yourself, you would let others speak about you so for example if you have qualifications or if you have skills, it’s like if you talk about it, it’s considered as boasting yourself and it’s not really considered as a positive way of speaking about yourself. And here you have got to do that, you’ve got to do it, you’ve got to say what you can do and you’ve got to do it in a way that basically you’ve got to sell yourself, you’ve got to sell yourself and you’ve got to advertise so you’ve got to tell whatever you can do for that job really at interview and that’s I found different because I’m not really used to that” (Fozia, from Sudan).

Lake, from Ethiopia, described facing similar problems:

“It is, it is against my own nature, it’s against the factor which I have been brought up basically. You wouldn’t talk about yourself, even if you’ve got qualities, you are better than everybody, you wouldn’t, you would let someone else talk about it on your behalf but you wouldn’t, it’s considered boasting, it’s considered, it’s considered, it sends a message that you are better than other people so it’s not, it’s not really good to do that where I come from”.

Drawing on the notion of habitus, we can understand how individual refugees’ ways of thinking, feeling and expressing themselves define their ordinary relation to the world (Bourdieu 1990). The habitus excludes culturally unfamiliar practices (such as talking about one’s abilities for some cultural groups) and makes them ‘unthinkable’ (Reay 2004). Hence applicants from different cultural backgrounds will approach interviews/ job applications from different, unequal starting points- it will inevitably be easier and better suited to those for whom the process is ‘known’ and taken-for-granted, who can move in their world ‘as a fish in water’ (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992). A lack of familiarity with the practical aspects of job application was compounded by a more general lack of information or knowledge about wider systems, for example where help might be sought and obtained.

“I think I will get used to it, it’s still difficult for me, I am foreigner, I don’t have enough information about agencies, about systems, law, policies, I have to learn…” (Maria, a teacher from former Yugoslavia).

Job Centres and general sources of information or employment were generally experienced as unhelpful. For example, Abdul, an engineer from Iraq, was not uncommon in describing being sent by the Job Centre to an interview for a job for which he was obviously over- qualified. Several also felt that job centres had not encouraged them to seek employment:

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“Since I arrived here two years ago, I tried to, even I was not advised from Job Centre […] to look for job, but it was my need you know, I can’t be at home all the time” (Maria, a teacher from former Yugoslavia).

The lack of access to appropriate advice and guidance meant that some refugees grew increasingly frustrated as they tried different avenues and were unable to access the appropriate services or assistance that they required:

“I didn’t have any information, the right information, the correct information about the society […] I was ready to work, I was ready to start my job, I was ready to start study, but I couldn’t get the exact information where I have to learn English, which classes? […] You know they need much more a higher level of education English classes, you know, and I couldn’t get enough information and I tried to find something but I waste my time instead of to get something, to improve something, I waste my time” (Hamed, a teacher from Iran).

“[…] because when I go to the job centre they just say ‘hmm’. When I ask them [for] work ... because I am accounts assistant and [want] to work as accounts assistant, they didn’t accept me. They said ‘you have to get qualification in this country’. I didn’t get the advice. [They] just say ‘go away’. No advice, I don’t know where to get advice” (Farhan, from Algeria).

Indeed, the situation was often exacerbated where two or more agencies became involved. For example, Farhan reported receiving conflicting advice from the job centre and a refugee agencyl – both of which advised him differently and which culminated in the job centre refusing to pay for him to undertake a course with the refugee agency that might of helped him secure employment in his field of expertise. Qualifications and credentials Refugees were clearly disadvantaged by their lack of specific skills and qualifications, and often felt unprepared for the UK job market, which was largely a function of their forced migration:

“Firstly, because it wasn’t our choice you know to be an asylum seeker or a refugee. There was some forced situation. So we were not prepared for that. First I needed to learn English, to study English. So I was focused on English and because of that I had to go to different colleges just to improve my English first and then after that I had to re-obtain some of the qualifications that I already had because they didn’t accept it. So I needed some recognised qualifications in order to get permission to work and also insurance and it took about four or five years to get enough qualifications and insurance to start work”. (Farrokh, working in alternative therapies)

This situation was compounded by the fact that their existing qualifications and skills were frequently not recognised by British employers (see also Section 8.1, where we argue that this might be understood as a form of ethnocentric credentialism):

“… and when you come here, I have the feeling you have to start everything from scratch and it does not matter what qualification you have you are starting back to school and study from the beginning” (Shanny, from the Ivory Coast with a degree in Business Law).

“… when you have been educated at a higher level you feel frustrated because you know when you talk about your skills, everybody laughs at you [..] it’s because you didn’t do it here, it’s not [recognised as] a skill. That’s horrible, they say look we need experience, we need education but you have to prove references, all of the things but

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I said I can’t prove that, but give me an exam for example, I can prove by acting, not by providing references and paper if you understand. And it’s a barrier because everywhere you think to go you say , […] they ask me this, I will not be able to provide it. So you get frustrated and stay home and sometimes I did so many other courses afterwards but I was going there frustrated and studying with the you know, others who hadn’t any educational background, feeling bored because I could you know, I could understand […] and I was thinking ‘what am I doing here?’” (Nia, a teacher from Central Africa).

This need to re-train and study (again) to get UK recognised qualifications, experiences and references was felt to be an intensely long and frustrating time:

“Yes, strange, this, its not [...] if you are not strong enough you can get mad, you can get - because totally your life change, you have to start from the beginning and to prove for the people you are a person with qualifications, experiences… ” (Fozia, a researcher from Sudan).

“No, it’s really frustrating to tell you the truth, it’s really really frustrating. I had days where I was like crying the whole day, I was sitting here crying, I said to myself what’s happening, am I stupid? What’s really happening?” (Claude, from Cameroon).

The experiences of refugees were borne out by employers, who also recognised the injustice/ difficulty of refugees’ skills not being recognised purely because they were not gained within the UK (See Section 6.1). In addition to recognised qualifications, refugees felt blocked by their lack of UK work experience, which employers seemed to demand of them irrespective of their previous years of experience overseas:

“I’ve attended I think quite a lot of interviews where they’ve always asked me this question that I find very, very ah difficult to understand because when you ask me how long I’ve been in the country and you are expecting me to provide seven years’ experience in the UK? I find this very stupid. Yeah, because I say to you I’ve just arrived and you are saying for this job I need somebody who has worked here for seven years. I don’t really understand that” (Claude, from Cameroon).

A lack of UK references was also experienced as detrimental to refugees’ chances of finding employment. Nia joked about employers’ lack of understanding, pointing out how, when fleeing for your life from a country, one’s immediate thoughts are focussed on saving one’s family, rather than finding bits of paper like qualifications and references:

“… and you say you can’t prove references and you can’t prove diploma [But] you know already how I came, I told you, you know? And they have to work maybe with the Home Office. Can I leave a child and think about a diploma, can I?! [Laughs] Can I leave my child and think first about [saving] a diploma?”

“They wasn’t interested in all that, they kept asking me for the latest employers’ letters and employers’ reference and employers’ things which I haven’t done any jobs in this country before. So I think it was very dis-helpful for me” (Daddar, from Iraq).

Often the only option refugees felt was open to them was to undertake unpaid, voluntary work experience in order to satisfy employers- thus adding again to the length of time that they were prevented from accessing the paid employment market.

“You cannot find a job just like that if you don’t have experience, especially this country there is no one can accept you if you don’t have experience so - it’s much better to do

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little bit voluntary work, so at least six months. So I decided to do at least six months and then I work” (Farhan, qualified accounts assistant from Algeria).

It was sometimes felt that this form of work could be rather exploitative, as refugees worked very hard for no payment. As Fozia explained, “Yes, sometimes you have this feeling, because they don’t give you any money, just expenses [and], lunch and it’s- I am exhausted sometimes […] it is a lot of work”. Some refugees were also frustrated when they found it difficult to obtain work experience within the mainstream employment sector, even when they were offering their services for free (cf. with employers’ views on work experience, Section 6.5). For example, Alem (a business graduate with 3 years work history from Ethiopia) wanted to get some experience in the HR department of a company where he had been working, but his request was declined:

“I did even offer them, I don’t want any salary please, I don’t want anything […] I was prepared to work Saturday and Sunday to get work experience in HR department so that I could get particular grounding in HR, where I got very funny twisted answer, which I don’t want to go into [… ] even after I offered them my work, which is totally free for them, I just asked to, I didn’t ask for remuneration, I was prepared to work for six months, 7 days a week until I pick up some experience”.

Nia had also found it difficult to get voluntary work: “Yeah, but you know, even though I can’t say to work really because I applied with, for organisation, voluntary organisation, they were all happy, they said we need you, we will soon come back to you, but you can wait months and months, you don’t get an answer,… When you phone to ask they say oh now we are still thinking about you but wait, wait. You wait but at the same time you are desperate, you lose your confidence you know. Maybe they say just to make me happy, they don’t need me”.

5.2 Reactions to barriers Refugees reacted in various ways to the barriers that they encountered in trying to find employment. As alluded to above, one of the most common reactions was that of upset and frustration. But refugees also conveyed the boredom they felt at being unable to work.

“I’d like the challenge as well, I am so bored, but I would like to do something but paid and after this, I get myself a deadline until the end of the year if I am not happy I am going to America, I’ve been there for a couple of times, actually applied via internet and I was invited for a couple of interviews, I did minimal just minimal research, it won’t be that hard, it’s not as hard as it is here to find jobs and once I get work, probably I hope to get a professional challenge that I am looking for so that’s one more challenge left for me to do” (Alem, a business graduate with 3 years work history from Ethiopia).

Some found that a pragmatic (not to mention important and rewarding) answer to the difficulties of finding work in mainstream society was to work within their own community. This often took the form of voluntary work, although a couple of respondents found that their volunteering led to paid work: either a fixed term post or a job interview opportunity. For example, Munira, a teacher, and qualified engineer from Iraq, described how her forthcoming first ever interview would be in the organisation where she had been volunteering:

“I have applied for the receptionist job in [organisation]. They have a place now, they advertised it and I applied for it. Now they called me, they said my name is on the shortlist for the interview, and the interview will be on Monday, that’s my first time”.

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The prevalence of working within particular communities was also borne out in the experiences of refugee and community organisations:

“I know that people help each other, and there are lots of Turkish businesses around and they mostly employ people with Turkish origin so there is a good circulation within the community” (Arun Saunders, manager at a BME employment advice organisation).

“…the problem is for ethnic minorities it is much difficult to get into the market and find a job in the offices, or other places so that is why they have no choice except you know starting their own business” (Vanda Behroozian, co-ordinator at a community organisation).

This form of work contained various benefits and attractions, for example respondents described their deep sense of satisfaction at being able to perform such useful and valuable roles for their communities. They also described how this form of employment was ‘safer’ than working in mainstream society, particularly in terms of enjoying greater respect and protecting refugees from wider racism/s and disparagement about their abilities. However, as various refugee respondents noted, working within one’s own community was also problematic in some respects. Notably, respondents worried that it constituted a form of ‘ghettoisation’. For example, Hamed has been working as an advice worker in his local community and, despite enjoying his work, he felt isolated from mainstream society and unable to progress or improve himself:

“The issue is in this environment you are safe, no problem, everybody has respect for you […] But the side effect is you are trapped in your own community and you don’t improve at all. You are in the same place that you were about two years ago, ten years ago and you are the same person and you haven’t any improvement, […] Therefore I am trying to gain much more information and much more knowledge and to improve. I am going to the English environment not to serve the English people, not only to serve the English people, but also to serve all other nations who live in London…”

Employment within the refugee sector could also be highly community-specific, hence Fozia felt that, despite being African, as an East African woman, she was still unlikely to be able to find work within other different African community organisation, such as within a local West African community (“sometimes you find bias like in [… ] refugee community organisations sometimes you feel as if they are biased [for example] for [West African] people. So there is a bit of tension…”). Two inerviewees responded to the barriers they found in accessing mainstream organisations by trying to work for themselves and set up their own businesses, although as Farrokh related, this proved very difficult in practice as banks were unwilling to provide loans. Unsurprisingly, various refugees made reference to the potential attraction of illegal economies as a means for gaining money to help support themselves and their families or to escape the benefits trap.

“… but if they get a job the wages is not enough to pay the rent and family so some of them they’ve got a family they get a lot of benefits so they cannot afford to do that. So that’s why the people enter the black market …” (Sabar, from Iraq).

The most frequent strategy that refugees adopted, however, was to change direction and/or succumb to under-employment. For example, Maria, Hamed, Alem and Abbas all described having to change their career directions as they tried to find work in other areas.

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Abbas was an electrical engineer, but felt he had to give up trying in this area to find another, potentially more accessible, area of work:

“I filled in hundreds of application forms to the different companies and whatever I could find, I even didn’t get one interview and then after about one and a half years trying I gave up my area”.

Similarly, Maria wanted to be a teacher (having over 20 years experience in teaching) but had been unable to get on a UK teacher training course. She is now doing community advice work and is hoping to one day work for Citizens Advice Bureau. Abdul, Nazgol, Abbas, Farrokh and Alem also all described how they were aware that they would have to find employment beneath their actual level of skills and qualifications. For example, Nazgol was working as a signage assistant, despite being a qualified and experienced graphic designer

“Yeah, I don’t know (laughs) because at the moment I am not [in] the job that I wanted and I don’t use my skills and the years I study [… ] this job is actually [a] basic job, I don’t use my skill any more [… it is] very low, just basic”.

As noted by Bloch (2004: 5), ‘… getting refugees into employment, and particularly into employment that matches their skills, is one of the most important aspects of the process of integration’. And yet under-employment remains rife among refugee communities. As Koser and Salt (1997) claim, there has been little study of the effects and implications of this ‘brain waste’ (under-utilisation of individuals’ skills) among skilled refugees. Certainly, we would argue, that the examples within this study of skilled teachers and engineers being unable to find work would seem to constitute a chronic waste, especially since these are priority areas within the UK that are currently experiencing shortages (ACE 2004; MacLeod 2004; ODPM 2004). At the level of individual refugees, it was notable that under-employment had a profound effect on psychological well-being, confidence and self-esteem (See Section 8.4). For example, Alem explained how he found mini-cab driving depressing and monotonous because he did not have to use his brain:

“I did it about one year and something which is really very bad for me because for a start, you don’t use your brain […] you don’t even have to use your brain cell, that’s it. So I thought no this is bringing me down, I’m not going to do this, just stop it and started uni and studied human resource management”.

Farrokh also found however that he even faced barriers when it came to applying for lower level work because employers regarded him as over-qualified. Consequently he adopted a strategy of down-grading his CV to try to find work:

“I applied to different organisations, different private centres and I sent them my CV. I had different interviews but I think personally my problem was most of them contacted me and they said ‘you are over-skilled and over-qualified’. That was a problem so I changed my CV and I just reduced the qualifications that I had and the years of experience and everything. So in that time I had a better chance to get a job. And then got more interviews”.

“Well I used to, I used to go to the Job Centre a lot, and - then I applied yeah and just once I went for interview and when I went for interview it was a garage you know mechanical garage, it was a Vauxhall garage and I went for, I went to the interview and they said Ok, the interview was Ok you know , even he said to me “you are over qualified you know, what are you doing here?” (Abdul, qualified dams engineer from Iraq).

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Representatives from employment advice organisations, such as Sarah Melling, clearly felt that part of the under-employment problem was created by job centres, which failed to adequately match the skills, abilities and qualifications of individual refugees to potential posts. Instead, Sarah felt that job centres encouraged refugees into jobs below their level of capability, which was wasteful for both individuals and the country as a whole:

“There’s a problem with the Job Centre, once people have got status they have to sign on for the Job Seekers Allowance and they’re often encouraged to do any type of job which may be way beneath their education, their intellectual ability so it’s like doctors ending up as cleaners and warehouse people […]they do seem to be very driven by government targets to getting people into work and we have found, although they’re quite good at helping people into jobs they may not be the right jobs for the level of their abilities and I think if people are on Job Seekers Allowance it’s very hard for them to do long courses which may lead to a better paid job in the end […]we’ve found some of our clients that have come back with not very helpful advice from job centres; some of the advisers, these just help them talk about their experience and qualification, they don’t seem to be very knowledgeable about refugee background how to accredit [although] they do refer, that’s the good thing, they refer”.

5.6 Good practices and factors that have helped refugees into employment Refugees recounted a variety of factors that (had) helped them to secure employment and to gain key skills and confidence in relation to applying for jobs. These ranged from the informal support from peers and family, to assistance from formal, specialist support agencies. The role of volunteering emerged as an important form of assistance and specialist refugee agencies were identified for the various forms of support they provided, including specific advice, guidance and training to help refugees access employment, orientation courses, mentoring and work placement schemes. Informal Support was provided by friends and family, who were able to provide practical assistance (such as character references, potential work opportunities):

“I have some friend working with me in Sudan and now they are working in very good […] here, they come with reference for me” (Fozia). “I saw one of my friends and she told me ‘you can work there’. I asked her for any volunteer job, to get experience. She told me ‘you can apply here’ in [name of organisation]. She used to go there and work as a volunteer as well, and when I went there I applied, they accepted me and I started to work there. It’s near to the place I live; about 15 minutes walk to the office. If I don’t have anything to do during the week I go there” [Munira, teacher from Iraq]

Friends from both within and outside of refugee communities were also cited as providing general motivation and encouragement:

“I was meeting a lot of interesting people like solicitors and a lot of solicitors and teachers who are professional. I meet a lot of professional people which was very helpful for me. All these people I meet they was encouraging me to keep doing the courses and to finish my education, I must get a degree or a diploma somehow then I could probably become a teacher or something” (Daddar, from Iraq).

“Actually my partner who lives here about that time about 20-25 years here in England she tried to show me the way how can I adapt myself in this new society and she was my partner in the institute but I had this chance to benefit from my partner in these areas” (Hamed, science teacher from Iran).

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Chance encounters also provided refugees with access to useful information. For example, Mohammed, an automobile engineer from Pakistan, was interviewed for a BBC news programme who advised him about a work shadowing scheme run by a charity. This charity later placed him with the building service department of the local council where he worked for 3 months and gained useful skills and experiences. Catrina also described how she became friendly with the teachers on one of her courses, who later came to her home and helped her with other things:

“Yeah, the teachers, they were very, very supportive. We becoming friends, you know , sometimes they come where I live to show me things in the kitchen, […] it was nice. Teachers, sometimes they come to place I live to show me things, sometimes we go to the shop, how to go to the shop, shopping, how to you know to help with things; it was very, very supportive, yeah”.

Friendships and social networks were identified as crucially important – hence it might be suggested that interventions aimed at helping refugees to build social capital, might be useful and valuable. The importance of building social capital was underlined by Catrina, a refugee from Angola: “[...] because to live with other people, you need to get along with these people, talking to other people because you come from so far away so you need to know other people”. Most of the refugees interviewed had also undertaken voluntary work, which they found highly useful in a number of ways. Fozia, for example described how volunteering provided her with networking opportunities, references and understanding of the employment system (“Yes, one of my main reasons for volunteering is to get a job, because when you are volunteering and make contacts, references, and also to be familiar with the system”). Fozia and Hamed both felt similarly about their voluntary work with community organisations:

“Yeah, that’s right yeah, for the community, for the local community centres as well as for friends and families who was newly arriving into the UK. So, I thought that the more I learn the better I will have more chance to get a job or to find more jobs and to get more experience”.

“[…] I worked for them as an interpreter, and then I tried to get much more information about the system, how it works in England and as an interpreter, welfare and immigration interpreter I could get lots of information in these areas” (Hamed, from Iran).

The form of support that was most frequently discussed and referred to by refugees was that provided by specialist refugee agencies. These agencies provided a range of services that refugees felt were important and useful, spanning advice, guidance and training, orientation courses, mentoring and work placements. Many of the refugees interviewed felt they had benefited from specialist advice and guidance and training that was tailored towards helping refugees into employment. Like a number of others, Lake and Abdul had received help from a refugee advice agency with writing and presenting their CVs. This assistance had an immediate impact, as Lake’s new CV resulted in invitations to interview, that he had not previously been offered. Abdul also praised the interview training that he had received. Refugee advice centres were valued for the highly practical and tailored information and courses that they provided. For example, Fozia described the professional development certificate that she had undertaken:

“It was helpful. Yes it was helpful.[…] It is, I learn how to make a presentation, proper presentation, and also build my confidence, it was the first time I did […] at that time”.

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Refugees found that access to an advisor was also helpful for planning how and where to apply and trying to match their skills and interests to the job market:

“Here, in [name of agency] yes, I had adviser and she was very helpful and resourceful. […] We spent a lot of time talking, analysing my knowledge, my skills, and we find which is the most similar career to my previous career. Then I realised I can make it because I have done a lot of similar things as a teacher” (Maria, from former Yugoslavia).

“I came here to [unit name] and that time the adviser of the education, [name] she was so nice and she helped me to research. […] And I keep in touch with her, [name], after that then I finish I continue to find a job, which they introduce me to [name] she really helped me about my CV, my covering letter” (Nazgol, from Iran).

In addition to providing practical skills and advice, several respondents also made reference to the importance of the general atmosphere of understanding and support that they encountered in such agencies. For example, when asked whether she felt the centre was important, Shanny replied:

“Very, very important, I had the support I needed at this time, that was really the hardest part […] the atmosphere, it puts you at ease because, like, we are all refugees here. They do everything to support you”.

Refugees also described finding the more general orientation courses that agencies provided useful. For example, Claude described the merits of [name of organisation] orientation course, “They taught us things about how things work in this country, post, opening bank account, learning about …using the basic things that I found very, very useful”. Those refugees who had participated in mentoring schemes also reported finding them useful.

“Yeah, I wanted some advice, that’s really why I went there. And then through RETAS […] they gave me a mentor, they gave me a mentor and, through that mentor I got [name] college work and the [community centre name] work […]They taught us things about how things work in this country, post, opening bank account, learning about …using the basic things that I found very, very useful. […] because you know this country is different from mine so the knowledge I received from the training was very, very useful, yeah.” (Claude, from Cameroon).

Similarly, Fozia praised her mentor: “the programme called mentoring, they provide me with a woman, she is called [name] and she is doing mentoring for me to find a job now and she is very helpful”. Several of the refugee respondents had taken part in work placement schemes that were organised by specialist refugee agencies. Participants were mostly positive about their experiences (see also views of employers on work placements, Section 6.5). For example, Mohammed had been placed in the building service department of the local council where he worked for 3 months. He felt he learnt a lot, especially about computer aided design. In his previous country he had been used to designing by hand and so was pleased to be able to acquire new skills. He also felt that he was able to share his own knowledge in the company. For instance, when one of the design engineers had encountered a problem, Mohammed had offered a solution based on his own varied work background, which was warmly welcomed and acknowledged. However, he also felt slightly ambiguously about his current unpaid work placement, because he worries that he is being exploited because the company only has to pay his travel expenses and a £3 lunch allowance, which was being administered through the work placement organisation.

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Issues emerged, however, where the supervision being offered by the employing organisation was felt to be inadequate. For example, Abdul had been on an engineering work placement felt that the combination of poor supervision and cultural barriers had prevented him from asking for help. He felt that there were some aspects of the initially agreed schedule which they simply never had time to cover because the supervisor and firm in general were so busy.

“… then he went for a holiday for one month and there is nobody guiding me and just I started to you know, there is another few engineers they are just, I asked them for [if] they have something [for me] to do. What I did, I took from them few jobs and from these few jobs I learnt how to do it, I would ask them if I needed something. And because there wasn’t my supervisor and they can’t be giving me too much time for me”

This example highlights the need for carefully structured and supervised placements for refugees to maximise the potential opportunities – although as employers pointed out, resourcing issues can be a constant threat in this respect. 5.7 Retention and Progression of those who have found work Those refugees who had managed to gain paid employment (8 out of the 22) generally reported being happy at work and content with their level of progress. For example, Shahana was working part-time as a web designer for a refugee organisation and part-time as a freelancer. She is currently on a one-year contract and would stay if it were extended. She describes her experience to date as positive and prefers working for a refugee organisation because it is 'helping people like me'. However, she also described having to adjust to the competitive and fast pace of her field and also to the frequent changes in ICT. As a freelancer she soon realised that her knowledge needed constant 'updating' and feels that in her field it is very easy to fall behind. Hence she undertakes many IT courses and diplomas to keep up to speed. Munira was also very happy with her employment at a different refugee agency and enjoyed the supportive atmosphere:

“Really I liked, when I started working with [organisation]. I found I liked it. I like to work. I like to find a job and to independent myself. That’s the main thing I want. I know I am very competent. I can do lots of jobs but when I went I found the place very helpful, very friendly. They helped me and I got experience e.g. it was the first time I used a franking machine and they told me ‘it’s easy, just use blah blah’ and the work is done, and I did. That’s why I like to work for them”.

Abbas is a paid youth worker at the Iranian Centre and reports loving his job

“Yes this is a very good job, it is very good for me and I like it. I am interested in the job because, you know, I like working with children and it has given me an opportunity to do my job the best that I can”.

However, whilst his post is full time, it is only a temporary job that depends on external funding for renewal, which leads him to worry about having to find another job. Farrokh was also happy because he felt there were more opportunities in Britain for practising alternative therapies, as opposed to his country of origin:

“No, no it’s much, much better here. The reason that it’s not accepted in [country] and a lot of countries, a lot of Muslim countries, is the foundation of alternative therapies is Buddhism and Taoism. That’s why they resist. They understand that they can benefit from these therapies, but because they are stubborn. […] they resist against [alternative therapies] […] But in this country because of freedom I felt that

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much, much better I could get more experience. I could go through different courses. I could explain about my background and experience and get more help and support and also communicating with other healthcare practitioners in order to exchange our experiences and knowledge. So it was much, much easier here than in [country]”.

Some of those refugees who had worked in either a voluntary or a paid capacity in the past for organisations also described being given additional help and support. Mohammed, for example, had worked for a construction company who offered to assist him with registration at the Institute of Engineering. Nazgol also described how the organisation she had been placed in let her stay on to use their facilities and print out her CV. Farrokh also described the support given to him by his previous employers in an alternative therapies centre, who helped him to gain confidence and set up his own business:

“We made friends actually, not only employees. Still even though they are retired I go to visit them. Very good friends. They helped me a lot to understand the society better because it’s very difficult to understand a society when you first come here, just like going to the colleges, just by going to the courses, because you see [only] other refugees. So that was a very great opportunity because […] they helped me a lot. Always in their spare time they explained to me how people can accept you. How people can trust you. If you are honest then you shouldn’t have any problem. It takes some time… And after that they advised me to have my own centre. They showed me the way and they said ‘the services that you can provide is really good’. [Interviewer: And do you think without all of that additional support would you have been able to still set up the practice?] No. Definitely not. It was very, very essential”.

A few refugees did report finding different working practices and work place cultures difficult to understand or adjust to – particularly those who worked in mainstream organisations. For example, Abdul (Iraq) had experienced communication and cultural difficulties at work, which had been ignored by his supervisors. He found the (working class, male) culture in the maintenance firm where he worked to be very different and extremely difficult (“it’s a different culture, you have to be tough to work with them”) and felt out of place because he was far more qualified that the others but also because of their different culture and attitudes at work (“these people they are always swearing at work”). He felt helpless about the situation (“I can’t do nothing about it”), particularly when his supervisor warned him that he would just have to adjust.

“Yeah, yeah [the working environment is different] completely. Yeah this is the point. […] let’s say the culture here- because I didn’t know the people there, I didn’t know them very well, I didn’t know how they work, how do they work, how do they communicate, how is the friendship between them, how is - many things you know. And I start, - I’ve been one month and a half there and I didn’t know how they you know, how they, I didn’t know the environment exactly. And the employers should pay attention to these things, they say this is you know, we have to take the approach towards them, not wait for them to take the approach. They should, you know this is the point because I was shy to tell them and they are not bothered you know”.

Instead, he felt that employers should care and make themselves aware of the situation, even if this involves checking on his progress every day.

“This is hard work yeah, but it’s important to do it. It really is hard, maybe the employer - they don’t like it to do because they are not, because they are busy sometimes and [it is] something they never used to do it”.

Such examples illustrate the importance- particularly in the mainstream sector- for continued awareness and support from managers to ensure the retention and progression of refugees once they enter paid employment. Issues also remain for those refugees employed within the community or refugee sector, as their posts appear to tend to be part-time, or short-term and hence providing a less stable environment for retention and progression.

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SECTION SIX: THE VIEWS AND EXPERIENCES OF EMPLOYERS In this section we discuss the views and experiences of employers. Section 6.1 details what employers perceive to be the key barriers to employing refugees, both on the part of organisations and refugees themselves, and 6.2 discusses the perceived benefits of employing refugees. In 6.3 we consider what organisations felt they needed in order to become more diverse employers. Section 6.4 discusses in greater detail employers’ views of positive action strategies and 6.5 provides a focused consideration of employers’ experiences of taking refugees on work placements. We found that only two organisations formally recorded or monitored whether they employed refugees or asylum seekers. Only one organisation knew that it employed one or more refugees. Five organisations were confident that they did not employ any refugees or asylum seekers, and four organisations said they did not know whether they did or not. Both of the two recruitment firms said that they had refugees and/or asylum seekers on their books. 6.1 Perceived barriers to employing refugees and asylum seekers

Employers identified a range of factors that they felt acted as barriers against the employment of refugees or asylum seekers in their organisations. These are discussed in two main sections: perceived barriers on behalf of the employer/employing organisation and perceived barriers on the behalf of refugees/asylum seekers themselves. Barriers on the part of employers and organisational In terms of barriers on the part of the employer, the most commonly cited reasons related to a perceived lack of knowledge and information on the part of organisations and employers and a lack of understanding about the technicalities and legal status of refugees and asylum seekers. Concerns about resourcing were also raised. Across the board, employers felt that they lacked knowledge, information and awareness about the rights and entitlements of asylum seekers and refugees with regard to paid employment. They felt their knowledge was “Absolutely limited! Absolutely limited” (Vicky Sharp, from a recruitment agency) and they were “not fully converse with it” (Sarah Tomlinson, from a major retailer) and “not completely aware of everything” (Zahida Jagtiani, HR and diversity manager, Charity Organisation). Employers and managers also commonly expressed embarrassment that “I’m not as familiar as I know I should be” (Caroline Evans, project manager, health insurer). Tellingly, it was only the HR manager John Allier, from the only organisation to actually employ a refugee (a Housing Association), who said “I think I have got a reasonable handle on it, yes”. There was a degree of deferment of responsibility among some managers, who felt it would be the responsibility of Human Resource personnel to keep abreast of the relevant information – for example when questioned about his own awareness, Robert Smythe, assistant director in an NHS hospital said “not really, but I mean the people that probably do the recruitment would be, I mean I’m sure they know they’ve got to check x, y, z” and thought “I’d probably ask one of my staff who does recruitment”. However, even among HR managers and those organisations who had been working for some years with refugee advice and guidance organisations – and who had attended information events and hosted refugees on work placements – respondents still felt that they did not know enough. For example, Grace Wright was an HR manager who had been working with a refugee agency for some time:

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“I would say it [my understanding] is not that good. It has improved in working with [name of refugee agency] because […] when we first went to […] a presentation and the sort of mist in your head, you know - what is the employment status? Are they allowed to work? And all these things that you have a hazy sense of - and going to that presentation actually helped to clarify that yes they actually [name of refugee agency] have taken care of all that and, in this particular project anyway, they have done all the checks and it is fine. But I think that could potentially be a fear of employers, what is the legal status of this person and am I going to find myself in trouble because I have not checked the correct paperwork and what is the correct paperwork that I should be checking?”.

Grace highlighted the difference between accepting a refugee on an unpaid work placement (for which [name of refugee agency] had “done all the checks” and “taken care of all that”), and the potential scenario of having to take responsibility for employing a refugee as a paid member of staff (the organisation had not employed any refugees to date). As Grace pointed out, she- like many employers- felt that she would be unlikely to try to find out all the necessary information and requirements until actually presented with such a scenario in real life:

“I to be honest, I think I would say because I haven’t actually had to go through the process […] unless you hit a case, you wouldn’t actually know - it is when you hit a case that you think, ok yes, lets investigate this”.

This case may also prove illuminating for refugee advice and guidance organisations (like [name of refugee agency]), who may assume that partner organisations with whom they work closely and regularly (organising placements and dissemination events) feel adequately informed and confident about such information. When respondents tried to describe what they did and did not know, a degree of haziness and confusion emerged. For example, Hannah Cartwright representing an NGO thought that no refugees were allowed to do paid work and that the requirements might be different for “particular groups”:

“I can’t say that I know for all the different groups what their entitlements are. My understanding is that refugees are not entitled to undertake paid employment although you know in terms of the work that Refugee Advice and Guidance Unit is engaged in, they can undertake sort of training and sort of skills development […] It is confusing and I think it’s also, you know, it is very confusing for employers as well not knowing, you know, which particular groups you can legally employ …”

Those respondents who felt they lacked knowledge and information also tended to feel that such information was inaccessible or difficult to find out. For example, Trevor Johnson suggested “I think there needs to be a more effective way for the Home Office to communicate when it changes requirements and visa requirements to employers” and Caroline Evans claimed “actually I need a very simple fact sheet [about] employing refugees and asylum seekers”. Zahida Jagtiani, an HR diversity manager, had been previously approached by a refugee agency with regard to the possibility of taking a refugee on work placement and described how she had been sent a range of information, which she had disseminated to different departments. However, she still believed “I don't think it is that accessible because people don't know much about it” and felt that without this ‘chance’ encounter, “No, other than that I wouldn't have known”.

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The strong emphasis that employers placed on information and understanding of the system and the legal status of refugees was linked to a theme of fear and distrust. As will be developed further in the thematic analyses in Section 8, a large degree of this fear was linked to a discourse of the ‘dangerous’ or ‘unknown’ refugee:

“There’s a lot of people have suspicions, are these people here, are they here legally?” (Steven Rose, HR Manager, large public sector organisation).

“I think sometimes the title that you know is given to these people is a bit scary,… Yes, with refugees and asylum seekers you have no background [knowledge] as to really where this [person] has come from” (Sarah Tomlinson, manager for a major retailer).

Sarah Tomlinson refers to the term refugee’ as “scary” and denoting an unknown quantity. Indeed, Vicky Sharp (who worked for a recruitment agency) felt that underlying some of this fear was a lack of understanding of legal definitions and terminology (“they can be quite sceptical because they don’t have an understanding of the definitions behind refugees and asylum seekers”).

Employers also indicated a common concern that they would not want to fall foul of the law themselves due to not knowing the regulations. From this perspective, refugees are positioned as risky applicants or potential employees:

“But I think that could potentially be a fear of employers, what is the legal status of this person? And am I going to find myself in trouble because I have not checked the correct paperwork? And what is the correct paperwork that I should be checking?” (Grace Wright, HR Manager for a large public sector organisation).

Respondents also highlighted how resistance to employing refugees or asylum seekers within organisations was justified through an appeal to the extra resources that might be incurred (such as additional time, money, training or support). In this way, refugees were positioned as a drain, rather than an asset, to an organisation, and as ill-fitting, helpless or needy, rather than independent, autonomous or ‘normal’ workers.

“I think, I think - I think [pause] I think most of our managers are quite reluctant, to take [a refugee on] because it is quite a lot of extra work for them. It’s not that somebody can just turn up and they slot [in]” (Robert Smythe, assistant director at an NHS hospital).

“I mean the short term con would be the investment of time a manager or the department would put into training that person up, because of the differences in the culture and working environment that they are used to and then they are coming into a new working environment. I think computer knowledge, knowledge of software packages, could be a problem, but one that could be resolved with training, and so in the long term the pro again is that the candidate or client who is based here can give something back to the organisation”. (Zahida Jagtiani, HR manager, Charity Organisation)

Many refugees expressed the utility of undertaking work placements as a route into employment to demonstrate their skills, but employers often expressed reluctance- foreseeing work placements as needing too much extra work and time invested:

“I think, I think - I think [pause] I think most of our managers are quite reluctant, to take [a refugee on a work placement] because it is quite a lot of extra work for them. It’s not that somebody can just turn up and they slot [in]” (Robert Smythe, assistant director at an NHS hospital).

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The need to invest additional time in training or support had been reinforced among some employers who had accepted a refugee either in employment or on a voluntary work placement:

“I think the first thing was that the level of IT skills the person had was far lower than I would have expected for someone who was as experienced in finance, and they had and were very experienced in the country where they had been working. But something that we didn't realise was that in that country the IT set up wasn't quite as it is here, and so it was far more of the manual type of finance work than the kind of high tech stuff we do here. So that was another, that added an extra requirement for support by me to that person, because it wasn't just about what work they would be doing, it was about actually bringing their IT skills up to the level with which they could work without supervision”. (Joanne Dickens, Finance manager for a Charity Organisation) “I think we need to be conscious if somebody is coming from a relatively far flung corner of the world, there may not be within this organisation maybe the sort of support mechanisms that exist for them…somebody that you can relate to sort of culturally or linguistically” (John Allier, HR Manager for a Housing Association)

However, other respondents believed that the argument about resourcing was simply a convenient excuse that hid deeper prejudices:

“It’s just, I think it’s just ignorance, it’s the biggest barrier. And what people don’t know and haven’t dealt with before it’s very easy just to say ‘I just haven’t got the time to go there’ and you know, without getting involved in these things, you know it would be [like] anything really that you’ve not felt a need for before […] I would see problems just in culture really, adjustments. But it’s as much for us to adjust as it is for the person coming in and that’s when we probably would need the training that you were talking about to make sure that people are aware that cultures are different and understanding” (Sarah Tomlinson, Manager for a Major retailer).

Perceived barriers on the part of refugees

Employers identified a range of barriers to employment that they felt were associated with refugees themselves. The most common perceptions were that refugees and asylum seekers were hindered by a lack of knowledge of UK culture/ culture clash and having inappropriate (or not recognised) qualifications and credentials. Employers commonly appealed to a notion of culture clash to explain the difficulties that refugees encountered in accessing paid employment. For example, Steven Rose described how “it’s a cultural shock”. Trevor Johnson also suggesed that “The hardest thing is learning the culture and how you fit into the new environment, and I felt for a long time there's a need for more support” adding, “you need to have the confidence to get around and not be phased by it”. Vicky Sharp also felt that it is important for refugees to develop an “awareness of business culture in this country as well” if they are to succeed in gaining employment. This importance of being able to “seamlessly integrate with a new group of workers” (Trevor Johnson) was a common theme, and is returned to in greater detail in the thematic analyses in Section 8, where it is discussed a racialised exclusionary discourse. As detailed in Section Five, employers also expressed similar views to refugees themselves, in recognising that refugees can be hindered by overseas qualifications not being recognised in the UK, by lacking UK references and UK standardised credentials.

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“All these people are very highly skilled coming, it’s just that the skill is not recognised you know, the skill is a skill not gained in this country and people don’t see value in it. It’s only when they actually see them actually working […] that they actually start seeing the positives” (Steven Rose, Assistant Director at an NHS hospital).

Even within an organisation that employed refugees, the interviewed manager recognised that this issue remained contentious and a source of struggle (“getting managers to accept that the potential to be able to do this [job] can be as valid as an actual ability, is probably one of the biggest sort of battles that we have got”). Steven Rose described how their employees need to have a CRB check, which can prove problematic for people coming from certain countries. Trevor Johnson, Director of a recruitment agency, also explained how ‘standard’ or ‘traditional’ employment practices render ‘other’ applicants, such as refugees, disadvantaged:

“Just to register, this is before the actual assessment stage takes place, they need to have a UK phone number, they need to have an address, a permanent address, and they need to have proof of the ability to work within a European Economic Area” (Trevor Johnson, Director of a recruitment agency). “[This is] quite a traditional type of organisation, they do tend to recruit from traditional sources so they will come through recruitment, go via recruitment agencies, often they go through recruitment agencies and recruitment agencies do a reference where you have to be in the UK for a minimum of three years and they’ll do ten years’ worth of references on you. And with an asylum seeker they’re not likely to get the references that they require, so in a way they’re disadvantaged from that respect”. (Vicky Sharp, project co-ordinator for a recruitment agency)

There was a notable disjuncture on this issue between the views of refugees and employers. Whereas refugees saw this as a failing or short-sightedness on the part of employers, employers were more likely to frame this as a lack or deficit on the behalf of the refugee. Some employers also felt that refugees were hindered in the application process because they did not make use of ‘traditional’ channels or sources of job advertisement and information:

“When it comes to traditional recruitment [it is] the Internet where we actually access much of our candidates. There is an issue that certain sections of the community don't have easy access to the Internet” (Trevor Johnson, Director of a recruitment agency).

We would suggest that organisational policies with regard to how and where jobs are advertised thus constitute an important equalities concern, as ‘standard’ practices can actually operate to exclude particular minority populations. These concerns are heightened yet further in light of comments made by some respondents about the role of intermediary agencies, such as job centres, which refugees may be more reliant upon for seeking work. Indeed, some employers felt job centres were responsible for putting forward inappropriate candidates for jobs- which (as various employers noted) could create a bad impression among employers of the skills and capabilities of refugees:

“The problem we find, and I use that word, with Job Centre Plus is that there is no screening at all, and their policy seems to be that if you are a person seeking work and express an interest then you have the right to go for that job, which I understand. [ Interviewer: Yes] But the odds are that that person isn't going to have the skills with which to do the job, so we say 'no' to 95 out of a 100, so we tend not to do that. There's also the fact that we believe that most of the work we are getting is of a….not a high standard, but it's of a standard where that sort of person should know how to

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find work and should know how to go to an agency or to the internet to seek work and do searches, and they probably aren't pacing that job centre looking for work as a Project Manager for Oxfam. Now that view might be challenged by the Job Centre, I don't know, but I have also found it challenging to work with them as well.” (Trevor Johnson, white British, Director of a recruitment agency).

6.2 Perceived Advantages to Employing Refugees

Despite the fact that the majority of organisations did not currently employ any refugees or asylum seekers, employers identified a wide range of potential advantages and benefits that might be accrued by employing refugees. A number of employers felt that a diverse workforce is desirable in its own right and culturally and linguistically diverse employees can bring a richness of knowledge and experience to an organisation. A number of organisations felt that it was important for their employee profile to reflect the diversity of their target markets or communities, especially for those organisations with a local, London remit. For example, John Allier, from a Housing Association felt that “the wider the background staff groups that we've got, the more we can respond to more needs from our other [clients]”. As Trevor Johnson from a non-profit recruitment agency put it, “I think the firm can gain from learning more about the community”. Diversity was frequently framed within a business argument, as something that made ‘good business sense’:

“I think the first thing that comes to mind is you link it with diversity, obviously a lot of companies, especially in the city, they’re global organisations, to have an understanding, first hand experience and knowledge of somebody else’s culture is obviously going to be of benefit to them” (Vicky Sharp, project co-ordinator for a recruitment agency). “I think different experiences add value, where you have a different range of opinions that you can take into account of everything, the wider picture and not just a narrow view, and that you have lots of different arguments as opposed to mainly two. […] There are so many other things to consider, which makes it more complex, but I think more interesting and exciting even and challenging […]I mean through all that comes innovation, so, innovative ideas and new ways of doing things, so things that you may not have considered before or experienced before, someone from a completely different background can say 'well actually you could do it like this, because this was done then and it worked', whatever. I mean people think differently, different approaches work” (Zahida Jagtiani, HR manager for a Charity Organisation).

“The greater of the variety of people in the business the greater the broader the thinking of the business, the broader the teams’ ability and if you are recruiting the same people all the time you’re just, you’re just providing the same service all the time” (Caroline Evans, manager for a major private health insurer).

Emphasis was placed on how “they could bring a wider perspective” which might create “a real positive difference to the organisation” (Hannah Cartwright). Consideration was also given to the practical skills, such as language, that refugees might also be able to bring to the organisation. For example: “Well we have actually got, we actively run a list of, an interpreters list, we want lots of

languages on our interpreters list, we get customers from all walks of life and there are gaps at the moment in that so that would be really useful to be able to say to the customers we now have this language available” (Sarah Tomlinson, manager for a major retailer).

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A number of employers also felt that if they were to employ refugees within the organisation, then their presence might help reduce prejudice and misconceptions about refugees held by other members of staff, to make them “more tolerant of what the issues are” (Steven Rose) and as a means of “raising their awareness… and you know, having that level of appreciation [of] where other people are coming from” (Hannah Cartwright). Trevor Johnson felt that this increased intercultural understanding would be a two-way process:

“I think from the point of view from the organisation you will dispel some of the myths about refugees and asylum seekers that appear in the Daily Mail, you would also allow that asylum seeker to interact with a mainstream city community, and that will perhaps help them see city people as not being a bunch of uncaring racist people, but as human beings as well”.

A number of employers also recognised that organisations might benefit from the professional skills and abilities of refugees. By widening their recruitment net, some felt that firms might be able to “access a skill they couldn’t perhaps access elsewhere” and tap into “a wider talent pool”:

“But looking at people who have come from abroad who quite often have had a very comfortable life abroad, and in fact the people who get here, my understanding is the ones who have managed to escape tend to be those who are educated and who have had access to money and managed to bribe their way out of a situation, in fact we are getting the cream of these countries that have been ravaged by wars” (Trevor Johnson, director of a recruitment agency).

“In most cases the asylum seekers and refugees are of a professional background and of a skill and knowledge, and so it's good, they are enthusiastic and eager to get back into the workforce, being in an environment. You know, to feel like they are contributing something of value because of their skills and knowledge” (Zahida Jagtiani, HR manager for a charity organisation).

A few employers also candidly admitted that organisations could actively benefit from existing inequalities when it comes to employing refugees as they often constitute a source of cheap (and reliable) labour.

“You’re increasing the talent base in the business through I would say a relatively inexpensive route, employing refugees and I’m not meaning that we’re taking advantage of them, just that there are some expensive ways of getting staff and there are some cheap ways of getting staff and not that they’re going to be necessarily paid differently but just the way to get people in, there are - I feel through more clever sourcing of talent, cheaper ways to get them […] from what I’ve read they are more loyal” (Caroline Evans, manager for a major private health insurer).

“It's also the fact that people from these communities will work for less money, though that's very, very rarely said in these surveys” (Trevor Johnson, director of a recruitment agency).

Another interviewee suggested that employing refugees might be converted into a source of good PR for a company:

“I think it’s a two way you know sort of beneficial thing....I think it’s useful and certainly from a trade union perspective because you know, it will be good PR for us if we you know, we are engaging with those groups of people” (Hannah Cartwright, representative from an NGO).

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6.3 What organisations need/want in order to become more diverse employers Employers were asked what they felt they needed in order to become more diverse employers and, in particular, to help them to employ refugees and asylum seekers. A range of answers and suggestions were provided, but the most popular responses called for more information and for assistance from outside organisations and resources (time and money). The need for appropriate training, policies and positive action strategies were also mentioned, as was the potential for work placements to help improve attitudes within organisations towards the employment of refugees. The suggestions varied as to whether the onus for action was placed upon the potential employee, the government or the organisation itself. Employers popularly asserted that they require more information to enable them to employ refugees. As Zahida Jagtiani put it, “I think what would be helpful would be for people to be clearer about the situation and status of refugees generally. What status do they have in terms of work possibilities?”. “Exactly - there are under the immigration and asylum legislation quite heavy fines as

well and I think, you know, I think that if anything […] there is a need for an awareness raising in terms of employers” (Hannah Cartwright, representative from an NGO).

Alongside this need for information, employers felt they, as organisations, they needed to help other employees accept and/or adjust to working alongside refugee colleagues by raising awareness of the issues:

“I think as I say it’s just about educating people… breaking down barriers and making people feel more comfortable with the unknown” (Sarah Tomlinson, white British, training function manager for a major retailer)

“… communication has a big part to play in it […] the greatest thing is to raise awareness within the business that they’re there” (Caroline Evans, manager for a major private health insurer).

Some felt this would effectively mean having the appropriate information to enable them to ‘sell the case’ for employing refugees to senior managers within the organisation: “So I think it would have to be pitched at what are the advantages to the organisation

and what are the advantages to you as a manager of giving this person a work placement” (Robert Smythe, assistant director from an NHS hospital).

This notion is perhaps reflected to some extent by employers’ tendency to cite the ‘business case’ for employing refugees, as noted previously. Trevor Johnson also suggested that models of good practice or incentives, such as “an award” might help to win over reluctant managers:

“It would be interesting to have an award for the mainstream agency or employer that had the most success recruiting refugees into permanent jobs as a model of good practice. It’s also having case studies of how it has successfully been done” (Trevor Johnson, director of a recruitment agency).

However, the predominance of the business argument for increasing diversity, and the emphasis upon needing to incentivise the recruitment of refugees might also be read as a matter of concern by those who are concerned with a social justice and equity agenda. It was suggested that perhaps direct experience of working with refugees, for example via work placement programmes, might offer a practical solution for addressing the biases of both managers and workers:

“… maybe a better work experience programme that the managers buy into” (Robert Smythe, assistant director from an NHS hospital).

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“Having a work placement as experience of refugees for the employer- ‘The future yeah you know, personal viewpoint, - again, I think what we need to recognise, that because of diversity of the population, the number as a whole, the potential is that there would be quite a potential there for a large number of refugee placements’… It’s only when they actually see them actually working on […] that they actually start seeing the positives” (Steven Rose, HR manager for a large public sector organisation).

(Organisations’ experiences of, and views on, existing work placement programmes is detailed below in Section 6.5). Employers also commonly indicated that they felt they would need more assistance from relevant / specialist external organisations to enable them to employ more refugees. Respondents suggested that they needed the help of such organisations to help them “tap into” and be “put in touch with” relevant potential candidates, particularly those for more senior posts. As Caroline Evans put it, “I think we need to obviously, we are already in the process, we need to build relationships with these organisations we’ve begun to identify that can help us”. These organisations were often positioned as providing a servicing role to the organisation and were seen as critical for both linking the skills that refugees bring with the gaps within organisations (Grace Wright) but also providing a cost-effective way of providing access to particular communities: “The key for me is access to those communities…and I haven't got the access to

them then I can't reach them. I am relying primarily through cost, but I am relying on the internet to recruit people […] whether there's actually the possibility of developing grant programmes to cover part or all of the cost of reaching those communities, that would be interesting” (Trevor Johnson, director of a recruitment agency).

It was widely felt that organisations needed additional resources, particularly money and time to be able to develop appropriate training and to undertake activities or programmes of action that might encourage recruitment or retention and progression of minority groups, such as refugees and asylum seekers.

“So I mean I suppose as an organisation what would be nice for instance is if we had more money to do black and ethnic leadership programmes. I suppose if we had more time, resources to do more training of staff and managers in cultural awareness. I think a lot of it does come down to yeah just having money or time or - yeah, I mean I suppose an outside resource really. Perhaps mentoring…” (Robert Smythe, assistant director from an NHS hospital).

Equality issues, such as working to increase employment opportunities for refugees in an organisation, were regarded as falling outside of the ‘normal’ business of work, and took the status of a ‘nice idea’ or ‘good intention’ that was often presented as an unrealistic or unreasonable request within the current economic climate:

“I think it’s just an issue of we don’t have the time to do this at the moment, our priorities- and in terms of priorities that would be, way, way down the bottom I would imagine, if it required additional resources albeit someone’s time rather than money, it’s not important at the moment. I don’t think it’s an equal opps issue, it’s just - it’s not really important because we’ve got the work, the business to do but if we could link this into getting the work of the business done then perhaps it would be looked at differently […] there’s quite a lot of sort of like financial worries around at the moment, …I think it would be difficult to introduce a new programme really” (Robert Smythe, assistant director from an NHS hospital).

“We are not a bottomless pit of money and very often we’ve got a finite resource that

we have got aims and ambitions but we haven’t got the resources to actually deal with so …” (Steven Rose, HR manager for a large public sector organisation).

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This form of popular discourses positions equality issues as marginal to the ‘real’ business of an organisation, and thus allows them to be reasonably dismissed. For many, rather than regarding it as being an important responsibility of an organisation to be a fair employer, respondents felt that their organisations would need to be rewarded or aided financially to undertake such initiatives.

“I think if there were financial incentives there, the likelihood is that there’s a lot of private sector employers would be far more prepared to actually look at it and then see a benefit from it” (Steven Rose HR manager for a large public sector organisation).

However, one organisation adopted a different view, because equality issues were considered to be central concerns and hence funding and resources were ring fenced, for example to enable all posts to be widely advertised, e.g. in the minority ethnic press: “I think there isn’t really a funding issue, but I think for other employers it could be an

issue, especially when you have got things like the Internet and a lot of employers are quite happy to use the Internet and the costs are a lot cheaper using those routes to target groups of staff. But for us personally the funding is fine” (Grace Wright, African Caribbean, HR manager for a large public sector organisation)

The need for more education and training of refugees themselves was also raised in relation to making refugees ready for the workplace:

“I think there needs to be joined up thinking about employment training, and there are better models around now…if you can develop a programme that gives people the skills in the English office in terms of the culture to a certain extent, and then a real work placement… an induction course into working in the UK but phrased perhaps in a more positive manner” (Trevor Johnson, director of a recruitment agency).

“I think it's being able to get people from minority ethnic backgrounds into the process, either sort of graduating with the relevant qualifications. It could be that, that's where the problem lies” (John Allier, HR manager for a housing association).

The role of policy was also discussed- with mixed views being expressed. Grace Wright felt that there is an urgent need for more ‘joined up’ equalities policies to help address competing needs, where refugees and asylum seekers constitute only one target group among many:

“perhaps that as a manager […] you are being encouraged to think about these various groups, it can sometimes feel like equalities overload, yes. […] with all the things that you are focussed on it is very difficult to say well how should we prioritise this and which groups should we prioritise?”.

Others, felt that perhaps what was needed is a sharpening up, or revising of existing policies to ensure that ‘new’ groups, such as refugees, are accommodated within them:

“I think if an organisation has a policy which protects not just old members of staff but new staff that are coming in where you do have a sort of respect for other religions or other people’s culture then that [discrimination] wouldn’t necessarily happen” (Vicky Sharp, project co-ordinator for a recruitment agency).

However, others felt that no additional legislation was necessary, or else that it was only selectively needed- or might be counterproductive:

“I think we’ve got all the legislation, I mean I think the legislation is there. I don’t, I mean I’m not going to say that people don’t [experience inequalities]- but I mean I think it’s - it’s something else…” (Robert Smythe, assistant director from an NHS hospital).

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“That’s a bit of a thorny issue isn’t it? Because yes, local public sector, local

government, voluntary organisations, not for profit organisations are pretty good in terms of, you know, how they go about attracting people. In terms of the private sector, yes there could be a case and an argument made for that. But do you want to go down the road of forcing people-?” (Hannah Cartwright, representative from an NGO).

6.4 Views on positive action strategies Employers were asked their views on the merits and disadvantages of potentially using positive action strategies within their organisation to improve the employment of refugees and asylum seekers. Most respondents identified a range of both pros and cons. Several of the organisations described how they were already involved in implementing positive action strategies to improve the recruitment and/or retention of particular minority ethnic or disabled communities. For example, Steven Rose described setting up specialist steering committees and forum, working with local (disabled) organisations to provide assistance with applications, advertising vacancies via specialist agencies before mainstream advertising and guaranteeing interviews to any member of a target group who meets the person specification. Like some others, Steven felt that ethnic monitoring (of a range of minority ethnic groups) could be useful for checking the retention and progression of minority groups in order to address glass/concrete ceilings within the organisation. Examples of positive action strategies used by other employers included rolling out diversity workshops (Vicky Sharp), using specialist recruitment agencies (Caroline Evans, Steven Rose), mentoring (Hannah Cartwright), and regular advertisement of posts in the minority ethnic press (Grace Wright, Sarah Tomlinson).

“We do have a recruitment agency that we use at the moment for very senior professional roles who provide, - but they specialise in black and ethnic minority employees but they basically, they have a range of ethnicity […] including white […] we should be sending them details of all of our senior positions which are available […] and they have sort of first refusal to come back with people that are suitable for that post. And then, at that point we then look at them, at the people that they provided in the light of all the applicants equally, but that is actually, I suppose that is Positive Action- that is a specific group that we’ve shown our intention [towards] (Caroline Evans, manager for a major private health insurer).

“Locally we would be putting adverts and invitations to events in the local documentation that our community would be viewing so we do publish in the Jewish Chronicle and the Asian papers and things like that” (Sarah Tomlinson, manager for a major retailer). “Well it might be for example where are you advertising, where are you trying to attract from, where are you telling people you know, is it just within a particular sort of narrow sort of circle, do they need to think about sort of you know, casting their net a bit wider. And that will mean sort of you know advertising in ethnic media publications and promoting themselves in a wider community really. Tapping into local communities, it’s those sort of things so - you know, unless you start doing that you’re never going to get people through the door and yes, training, training of managers, training for the people that are there and you know, sort of training and development of people once they come through the door and you know to show and demonstrate that you know you do want to develop equally, you do want to attract you know and keep them” (Hannah Cartwright, representative from an NGO).

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In terms of the perceived benefits of positive action strategies, John Allier felt that they were the only way forward:

“I don't think any other approach is effective. … unless there is something which has both carrot and stick in place, nothing will change in my view”

Sarah Tomlinson and Caroline Evans also reinforced the importance of a social justice case (alongside the business case) for engaging in such work- although as noted previously, Caroline Evans also regarded positive action as a means for tapping into refugees as a source of highly skilled yet reliable and cheap labour:

“But I- you know we would want to get involved in anything really that helps the local community and that we felt would benefit individuals and ourselves” (Sarah Tomlinson, manager for a major retailer). “It just makes the best sense to be ensuring that people, everybody who is qualified is getting the same opportunities […] the reason we’re going for diversity is because it’s the right thing to do for real reasons and we know there’s a very clear business case for it and refugees are one part of that…” (Caroline Evans, manager for a major private health insurer).

In terms of the potential disadvantages of positive action strategies, respondents also indicated a range of issues. The most widely voiced concerns were that positive action strategies take time and money, could be regarded as a form of discrimination in themselves and may not be easily extended to encompass refugees and asylum seekers.

As noted previously in relation to what organisations felt they needed to implement change, the use of positive action strategies was regarded as limited due to the time and money required to implement them.

“I think the cons are it does require a certain amount of time being put in by a Support Manager, and as I said earlier that's a difficult thing” (Joanne Dickens, finance manager for a charity organisation).

“Again the cons really that managers would have to in some way devote some time to that and it’s perhaps it’s time that they don’t have” (Robert Smythe, assistant director from an NHS hospital).

“Yeah, I think you’d need to, as you’re doing, is do some research as to how much time and energy it would be worth putting into something like that […] Without knowing the long term benefits in the project for both the individual and the company, you wouldn’t know quite how deep to go with it but it’s about making us aware and then once we realise that this is something that actually we want to get involved with, then we can give it the time” (Sarah Tomlinson, white British, training function manager for a major retailer)

There were also some concerns voiced that positive action strategies can sometimes attract backlash from majority group populations and/or that they need to be carefully implemented to ensure that the organisation is not acting unlawfully or being seen to be discriminating (albeit positively).

“I think - one main issue would be just general understanding of positive action as opposed to positive discrimination and just raising awareness, both in our HR teams as well as our managers and also our employees and I think we mustn’t forget that if we’re going to do a positive action strategy and employees see somebody getting what they see as favourable treatment, that needs to be managed very well as well

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and we need to communicate that clearly. I think of that the main way to overcome that would be internal communication to all, targeted to the right people through the right media. I think that would be the main barrier, just ignorance of what the issues are and the reasons for it. I can’t see any other cons” (Caroline Evans, manager for a major private health insurer).

Robert Smythe, assistant director of an NHS hospital, also had difficulty distinguishing between targeting a particular group in a positive action advertising campaign, as opposed to “ring-fencing” jobs for particular groups:

“If they met the personal specification then they go through the interview or whatever, you would still have to do that and I mean, I would imagine we couldn’t just - you probably couldn’t just target refugees I wouldn’t think. It would have to be open to everyone, but refugees could apply. [Int: why, as a matter of interest, why couldn’t you, just target- ?] well I’m just thinking maybe, I don’t know - I would probably, I mean it would probably be [long pause] well I mean I don’t know it could be seen as positive discrimination I suppose, I don’t know - something we would have to look at you know whether you could just ring fence a certain vacancy for certain groups. I don’t know, I mean it doesn’t sit that comfortably with me really. […] I don’t know really whether we could actually ring fence posts specifically for refugees and I think as an organisation, organisationally it maybe doesn’t make sense either because you are excluding a lot of other groups that might be better at doing the job than a refugee for instance”.

A number of employers felt that more work needed to be done to practically extend existing positive action strategies to include refugees and asylum seekers. This was also complicated by the difficulty of trying to discern, define and reach particular target groups:

“I think, one of the issues is which groups to prioritise, because there are those groups that are covered by law and I think those tend to be the groups that organisations prioritise. But within that, there are different priorities […] that also need to be considered. And I think as an employer with all the things that you are focussed on, it is very difficult to say […] which groups should we prioritise?” (Grace Wright, HR manager for a large public sector organisation).

Steven Rose was also concerned about how refugees and asylum seekers fit within existing race discrimination policy, for example whether they should be classified by their country of origin or religion. He was also sceptical about the likely success of positive action strategies because they offer no guarantees of employment, only an opportunity to apply:

“But what we can’t guarantee is that the people coming from into us would be from the local population. So although we can’t actually discriminate and say we will give preference to [area] residents for posts that are available. So I don’t think there’s any way we can actually go down that route without – […] but without falling foul of employment law, we’d be accused of discrimination”.

6.5 Perceptions and experiences of work placements As noted earlier, some employers suggested that taking refugees on work placements might help organisations to adopt a more favourable response to the employment of refugees. It was felt that hosting a refugee on a work placement would enable the refugee to ‘prove’ themselves to senior managers and would also help to dispel some of the myths surrounding refugees, as other workers got to know and work alongside them. In this section we take a slightly more detailed look at the problems that some organisations envisaged would prevent them from accepting a refugee on a work placement, and contrast these views with the

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experiences of those organisations that had already taken a refugee or asylum seeker on a work placement. Steven Rose, Robert Smythe and Hannah Cartwright had not experienced placements but imagined a range of problems and factors that would prevent them from accepting a refugee on placement. These issues were primarily framed in terms of providing the level of support and resources required to host a placement:

“I think most of our managers are quite reluctant, to take because it is quite a lot of extra work for them… because a lot of managers just really don’t have the time to actually contribute to the programme…people just see it as being an awful lot of extra work” (Robert Smythe, assistant director from an NHS hospital).

“Again it sort of goes back to what I was saying earlier on about sort of parameters and sort of resources that the authority can put in about what they’re working to within budgets…. There is definitely a financial [aspect] to it, and you know, there’s a cost to every employee whatever you do, whether you’re paying the salary to them or not, there is a cost there for that person coming in” (Steven Rose HR manager for a large public sector organisation).

Hannah Cartwright had actually tried to organise placements in the past, but had been prevented by these precise issues:

“I think the difficulties […] we have come up against - and we have tried to sort of arrange placement - is really accommodating those placements, finding you know people who can spend their time to supervise and you know make those placements as sort of positive and, you know, of positive benefit to the individual”.

Those organisations that had taken a refugee on work placement reported deriving multiple benefits from the experience. Firstly, it was widely felt that the individual refugees themselves benefited from the placement:

“I think it went very well, I was really pleased that one department was committed to seeing that this was a success and providing the placee with the skills and abilities that we have at [organisation] and to take a lot away with them” (Zahida Jagtiani, HR manager for a charity organisation).

Organisations themselves were also felt to have benefited in a range of ways. As Grace Wright (from a public sector organisation) and Sarah Tomlinson (from a private retailer), explain below, placements were found to plug skills gaps and needs within the organisation, with firms benefiting from the skills, experience and personality of a specific individual. The placement experience also enabled employers to feel more confident with regard to potential future engagement with refugee issues and it was felt to have contributed to breaking down barriers internally within the organisation.

“The positive aspects have been that we have actually plugged specific needs within the organisation, so we haven’t created work, work has already been there and it is actually really, really useful to bring I people who are highly skilled and are experienced and who have delivered. Managers have come back to me and said and they don’t know, they don’t necessarily know the status of people that I am sending to them, but they have come back and said oh that person you out in has done really well so I think for us that has been the positive side” (Grace Wright). “Actually it’s, it’s quite nice to be able to offer this placement because we’re getting somebody with incredible ability with, somebody who’s got a lovely personality , which is always what we’re looking for putting in front of customers and the ability to take on some responsibility whilst she’s here as well […] but also I feel that by the

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end of the attachment the business will have got quite a lot back from offering the placement in the first place. [Interviewer: In what way?] […] Well what we’ve done is we’ve recruited two days a week somebody with immense experience and who studied the theory as well and things that are very relevant to what we’re doing. It gives [placement person] a chance to practise that in reality but I’m sure we will be learning from her as well. But the benefit will be that quite quickly we’ll have somebody who’s confident who has a lot of information about how to deal with retail issues and people issues, who probably will develop much faster than somebody who has come in just for a part time job without that relevant background..[…] I think initially we’re delving into this project for the very first time so it is very new and I think what will happen is that we will feel more confident about going down this road in the future. I think sometimes the title that you know is given to these people is a bit scary, so those of us who’ve not been in this domain before –[you mean refugees and asylum seekers?] Yes, with refugees and asylum seekers you have no background as to really where this has come from, but it was really nice to see such a detailed CV coming through with a lot of relevant information that actually gave you confidence in the individual in the first place and your input and the information we’ve had has been most useful. What it’s done is it’s broken down barriers, it has actually you know, from going from the unknown we’ve come into something which is actually quite comfortable and I am hoping will work quite well, but as I say, it’s very early days. But having done it once, you’ll be more comfortable doing it again won’t you” (Sarah Tomlinson).

However, attention was also drawn to the need to carefully supervise and support placements, and it was emphasised that a placement needs an adequate period of time (e.g. working three days a week for at least 3 months) in order to really develop and work- to enable both the organisation and individual to adapt.

“I think there would be an advantage if they could invest more time with us because I understand that they have lots of other training and qualifications to gain so they are only here for a limited time, and for a limited number of days per week, which can be quite disruptive. Which could break their learning curve as well, so, for instance when we had the last placee here, he was initially doing two days per week, and for the first three months, and it wasn't seen as very productive, but in the latter three months, it changed to three, and there was a big change to his pattern of working behaviour. He was able to invest a lot more into the work and provide a higher value and he was a lot happier as well, so, I think it's time that is needed […]I hope it was [successful], like I said the first three months it was really hard work, but in the latter three months [members of staff] said that there was a marked difference and he was able to give a lot back, so, and whenever I talked to the placee he seemed quite content” (Zahida Jagtiani, HR manager for a charity organisation).

“[When] he was able to give more days here, and the level of concentration and accuracy was all improved tremendously and continuity. And in the second three months it really was the turning point where he really settled in, he really started to work well without the kind of constant supervision that had been needed before, and you know, by the end of the second three months was really making a proper contribution to the organisation. […] Yes, I think it was a very successful placement in the end, but I wouldn't have said that at the end of the first three months” (Joanne Dickens, finance manager for a charity organisation).

It might also be noted that hosting work placements did not seem to lead the individuals concerned into paid employment with their host organisations, nor did any of the organisations that accepted placements actually employ refugees more widely. In one case, the organisation seemed to think that refugees are not legally allowed to undertake paid work, due to their only experience to date being of contact from an organisation that

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organises unpaid work placements for refugees. In this respect, there appears to be scope for the provision of additional information and messages to employers.

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SECTION 7: THE VIEWS OF REFUGEE AGENCIES AND REFUGEE COMMUNITY ORGANISATIONS REGARDING MODELS OF GOOD PRACTICE Refugee agencies and community organisations highlighted and identified the same issues as refugee respondents regarding views on barriers to accessing employment. Examples from these organisations have been included in the two preceding chapters, indicating where there is agreement in the views of refugee agencies/ community organisations, employers and refugee respondents. In particular, refugee agencies and community organisations raised issues such as English language competencies, limited access to ESOL classes at appropriate levels, lack of tailored ESOL for specific professions; employers’ lack of recognition/valuing of refugees’ qualifications, prejudice and racism, refugees’ limited understanding of accessing UK labour market and work culture, lack of UK work experience expected by employers, childcare and family responsibilities and the ‘benefit trap’ that made transition into work difficult because of the mainly low paid employment on offer. As noted previously, most concluded that it is not just one issue, ‘it’s the whole package.’ (Sara Melling, Manager in a Refugee employment advice agency). This section begins in 7.1 by outlining the additional, specific barriers identified by refugee and community organisations. The following section (7.2) details what refugee organisations felt to be the most important aspects of the models of good practice that they have developed over the years for helping refugees enter the labour market successfully, namely: (i) Holistic models of advice and guidance; (ii) Adopting a client centred approach; (iii) Tailored job search courses, (iv) provision of ‘packages’ of support, (v) Work placement scheme, (vi) job brokerage services (vii) Use of interpretation courses for employment mediation, (viii) Partnerships with ESOL colleges/courses and (ix) Engagement of both the public and private sectors.

7.1 Additional barriers A key issue that was highlighted by refugee and community organisations concerned current ‘permission to work’ restrictions. It was felt that these delay the settlement of asylum seekers into British society. The ability to work as soon as possible was regarded as important for helping newcomers settle and re-build an independent life. In July 2002 the government withdrew the employment concessions that enabled asylum seekers who are awaiting a decision on their application to apply for permission to work, after they had been in the UK for 6 months (Bloch 2004). The right to work was withdrawn despite an EU-wide focus on the need for social integration of refugees. The European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) states that 'lack of access to the labour market during the reception phase seriously hinders integration in the long-term'. (ECRE, 1999:2). Similarly, Bloch notes that ‘… getting refugees into employment, and particularly into employment that matches their skills, is one of the most important aspects of the process of integration’ (Bloch 2004: 5). Both Arun Sanders, from an employment agency and two representatives from a community organisation, argued that ‘permission to work’ restrictions have been damaging for asylum seekers. Vanda Beheroozian, the co-ordinator of the community organisation, claims that since the legislation, the situation has become worse for asylum seekers. Tara Hassan, a business advisor from the same organisation argues that allowing asylum seekers to engage in employment while waiting for status would be beneficial as it would ‘increase refugees motivation and settles people more quickly’. It was also felt that a lack of collaboration between agencies could lead to unnecessary duplication of service delivery, which hindered progress in the sector. It was felt that greater collaboration between refugee agencies, through partnership working and networking, would improve service delivery and provide a strengthened position from which to lobby government. As Arun Sanders highlighted, ‘we need to create partnerships with other

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refugee organisations so that they’re not duplicating and overlapping all the time and also with employers, higher education, further education’. It was argued that a lack of transparency amongst professional bodies and universities about the way they assess refugee qualifications also constituted an important barrier for refugees. Many interviewees felt there was considerable scope for establishing greater coherence and co-ordination in the way universities, professional bodies and employers assess overseas qualifications. Sara Melling revealed that one professional body had recently recognised the cost effectiveness of working with, and re-training, refugees with existing qualifications rather than seeking to recruit more overseas nurses, but few other professional bodies had followed suit. Sarah claims ‘we’re very frustrated with [the Teacher] Training Agency and I mean they are trying to help and be supportive but I’m still finding they could do more to help with the recruitment of teachers into local schools.’ She also felt that a range of other professional bodies ‘could be doing an awful lot more for this untapped work force than they are doing already’. Emwa Awan, director of a Refugee and employment advice agency, points out the problem for those seeking work in engineering is that ‘there is no single body that can recognise their skills and qualifications’. She claimed ‘We managed to do something for the teachers, [but] we are still struggling with the engineers because it is informalised; there’s no formalised route for engineers’. Where a field contained competing professional and awarding bodies, this impacted negatively on the opportunities open to refugees. Generally, the agencies felt that their specialism is not recognised by the policy makers or government departments.

7.2 Views on Good Practices

(i) ‘Holistic’ Models of Advice and Guidance Most agencies had long-standing experience of working on refugee employment issues and had developed initiatives in response to the barriers encountered by refugees and asylum seekers. Several of the agencies which offered support, advice and guidance to refugees noted that a ‘holistic’ approach was needed in order to tackle the multiple problems which many refugees faced when trying to access employment. Several interviewees also noted how the situation for refugees is often very complicated, and is rarely addressed by a universal, ‘one-size fits all’ approach due to the multiplicity of factors impacting within different refugees’ experiences. As Arun Sanders put it:

‘Sometimes the needs are very complex and move way over the boundary of straight education and employment advice …there has to be discretion of the adviser or the trainer how they manage those complex needs’.

Arun further explained their approach, highlighting how ‘it’s all of those mechanisms that’s making the thing work, it’s not just one single factor:

‘[It is] very intensive so it involves advice and guidance, it involves training, it involves liaison with employers and it involves you know, lobbying and raising awareness on a much broader scale than just on an individual level.’

This approach also requires a dual focus, on both refugees and employers: On the one hand ‘working with […] clients to make them job ready and enable them to access the job market’, and on the other hand ‘working with the employers and provid[ing] them with the information regarding the regulations and the legislations….’.

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(ii) Adopting a client-centred approach Several agencies expressed how, through their advocacy, they hoped to empower refugees. They therefore focused their services around their clients’ wishes and needs, as Sarah Melling explained:

‘We are very client centred […] if a client particularly wants us to follow up a work placement or to liaise with employers on their behalf then we are very willing to do so’, similarly C3 speaks of their aims to ‘tailor activities towards client needs’.

Emwa Awan gave an example of how this client-centred approach had been successful: her organisation had set up a club for the medical professionals on their books. She explained that the club operated like a study group, helping members to prepare for their English and re-qualification exams. It also helped to prepare refugees for work, providing mentoring, and information about working in the UK medical field. She explained that the club aimed to empower its members (see also Section 8.7) and build their confidence through shared experiences. The group includes refugees who are new to the UK job market and those who have been successful in finding employment: ‘It’s about sharing information’, Emwa explained. The scheme appeared to have been very successful, with the organisation reporting having helped around 100 refugee medical doctors into employment. (iii) Tailored job search courses Several organisations emphasised the usefulness of running job search courses that are tailored towards specific professions (e.g. nurses, teachers, doctors). It was felt that this tailoring provided organisations with a way of providing highly relevant and specific support to individuals. As Arun explained:

“In my experience I’ve found that job orientation and job preparation works best when you’re working with a group that are all going for the same type of job. …where I’ve also been in […] work in areas where you do sort of generic job advice and I just don’t think it works!’.

Several agencies recounted experiencing success from their tailored job search courses with regard to placing particular refugees into their desired professions. This success enabled organisations to build up the volume and scope of their schemes and courses and to strengthen or create relationships and partnerships with professional bodies and to link between different services and forms of support - which in turn had positive benefits for the organisations and individual clients involved. For example, Sarah Melling described how the organisation had advocated to a particular body on behalf of an African nurse. Whilst the refugee in question was waiting to hear from the professional body, Sarah’s organisation managed to gain her access to an adaption course for overseas trained nurses at a local hospital. As a result of this one particular encounter, Sarah’s organisation was able to develop close links with the course in question and now routinely refers all overseas trained nurses on its books to the course in question. (iv) Providing ‘packages’ of support Organisations felt strongly that helping refugees into professional fields required a ‘package’ of support measures to enable individual refugees to compete on a more equal footing in the highly competitive labour market. Sarah described this process as “building up a portfolio of experience” which refugees could then sell in the job market. This package might include a customized CV, interview skills and techniques, training, work experience and voluntary work. Alongside this package, organisations highlighted the importance of constantly working through partnerships to provide further opportunities for education, training and work experience. For example Emwa’s organisation was currently working on a programme for refugee teachers in partnership with local borough education departments. This aimed to provide a mixture of work experience and study to help support refugee teachers in to teaching jobs in the UK.

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(v) Work placement schemes Refugees and employers’ views on work placement schemes have been detailed in earlier sections. Organisations that were involved in the provision of work placement schemes emphasised the value of trying to provide a variety of placements across statutory, voluntary and private sector employers. They also outlined how the success of such schemes involves:

(i) making participatory employers aware of the range of potential issues affecting refugees

(ii) ensuring employers understand and recognise the specific skills that refugees have to offer and

(iii) providing continuous support to employers and refugees, including introductory training for individual refugees.

The need for provision of support for employers (not just refugees) was illustrated by Emwa, who described how the organisation works closely with employers, providing them with the necessary information about regulations and legislation and checking / securing all required paperwork and work permits. Providing this service to employers helped ‘to assure them that […] we are following […] the legislation and the regulations and the Employment Act and everything’. This also made the placement schemes more attractive for employers, by minimising the workload of organisations hosting a refugee on placement. Some of the organisations also accepted refugees on volunteering and work placements, for example Tara Hassan explained how they received regular voluntary work placements in their centre and stressed the benefits of this arrangement15:

‘The volunteers are a good resource for the centre and also it’s a good opportunity for the volunteers to be involved with the centre’s to get more work experience…and many of those who come here, not all of them but many of them, - they manage to get a decent job when they leave.’

(vi) Job brokerage services Most of the organisations and agencies reported acting to some degree as a form of job brokerage service, and as Adham Noor, from an umbrella organisation, noted, the explicit adoption of this role could prove beneficial in itself. Indeed, it was only when the agency stopped promoting itself as a generic refugee agency and began to promote itself as an employment agency that Adham felt they started to ‘make headway’. Those organisations and agencies that acted as employment firms found that they were able to successfully build on established, trusting relationships with local employers to successfully place refugees in employment. Emwa Awan and Adem Cetin, from a general employment agency found that this model worked particularly well for refugees with lower skills levels, who were more easily placed into employment in localities with particular labour shortages. Even a single success story could generate positive knock-on effects. For example, Sarah Melling recounted how the successful employment of a particular refugee led to the development of lasting links with a local motor mechanics firm: ‘we found […] a [name of car manufacturers] dealer locally who was looking for motor mechanics and I got into a very good e-mail sort of conversations with him and he kept e-mailing me, saying [name of refugee employed]’s done really well - have you got any other people on your books?’ 15 See also WLRI, 2004 for more substantive research on volunteering as a pathway into employment for refugees.

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(vii) Use of interpretation courses for employment mediation

Various organisations suggested that the establishment of interpreting training courses could create a useful way for refugees to use their language skills access employment and/or engagement in the labour market (in addition to providing a valuable resource for different refugee communities). Several refugee and BME community organisations were investing in providing further interpreting courses for their clients, for example Vanda Beheroozian reveals how their organisation runs an ‘Interpreter project’ providing in-house training and a qualification in interpretation. The organisation was then able to link refugee interpreters with clients, such as solicitors and other similar business, who may require interpreters. (viii) Partnerships Respondents flagged up the value of working through partnerships to deliver services to help refugees into employment. Organisations were commonly in partnership local ESOL providers. However, ESOL classes are often in high demand and Sarah Melling for example, spoke of how they were able to draw on a range of partnerships to provide refugees with alternative forms of language support (e.g. via teacher training courses). Whilst some partnerships were more informal, some organisations and agencies also benefited from more formalised, financially supportive partnerships, for example aimed at integrating a range of services and community/ refugee organisations. Partnership working enabled organisations to work across geographical areas and statutory sectors and provided a holistic model within which barriers to employment might be addressed (e.g. encompassing health, housing and employment). It was also recognised that effective partnerships work best where there is an ‘equal’ relationship of collaboration rather than a hierarchical relationship of consultation between partners. Where partnerships were truly collaborative, organisations noted the benefits. As Adham Noor asserted,

‘I certainly think that people [who] come and sit round the table at [the Partnership] are actually operating in partnership…If there hadn’t been, we wouldn’t have lasted 18 months, we’ve been here 3 years…we’re still operating.’

(ix) Engagement of both the public and private sector Respondents emphasised the need for refugee employment initiatives to operate and engage employers in both the public and the private sector. The key to targeting these two sectors was felt to lie in recognising the different and distinctive features within each of the sectors. Hence initiatives needed to be differently targeted and ‘sold’ within public and private sectors because ‘they’re differently motivated’ (Adham Noor). The difficulty of engaging the private sector was highlighted by several of the refugee and community organisations. As Adham points out ‘you have to understand what drives the private sector and what drives the private sector is profit and it’s as simple as that’. Recognition of different frames of reference, motivation and ethos with the sectors enabled organisations to frame their services in the most appropriate and attractive light. In particular, this often meant appealing to the ‘business case’ rather than social justice arguments. As Adham revealed

“While we were promoting [organisation] as sort of refugees into jobs we made no headway with employers, but once we promoted ourselves as an employment agency we started to make headway […] we’re not going to them [employers] and saying ‘you must employ our people because they deserve it’, we’re saying to them ‘here is the law, we can help you’”.

However, it was still recognised that “the private sector is at least ten times harder” for refugee and asylum seekers to access, whether in terms of employment or even in a voluntary/ work placement capacity.

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Whilst it was generally recognised that the private sector tended to be harder to access, organisations also recognised that there was considerable work still to be done in the public sector. In particular, it was felt that whilst progress had been made in some areas, there were still sizeable areas where the public sector workforce does not fully reflect local refugee communities and more should be done to engage with this issue (Adham Noor). For example, examples were given that some local authorities have made great headway in this respect, whereas others have not (Vanda Beheroozian). However, highly competitive national and local job markets were regarded as making it difficult for many refugees to get jobs or experience – across both unskilled/ manual and professional sectors.

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SECTION EIGHT: THEMATIC ANALYSES This section discusses thematic analyses, considering the role of issues such as race, racism, religious discrimination, language and age upon the employment of refugees and asylum seekers. The section combines data from refugees/ asylum seekers, employers and refugee/ community organisations. Section 8.1 begins with a detailed consideration of the role of race/ ethnicity and racism. 8.2 addresses the role of discrimination in terms of religious and political belief. Sections 8.3 – 8.7 discuss cross-cutting themes of language, health (mental and physical), social and geographical isolation, age and empowerment 8.1 Race/ ethnicity and racism Contemporary racism/s affecting the employment of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK Our analysis has identified four main racist discourses that work to position refugees and asylum seekers as ‘unemployable’ within the UK labour market. These discourses position refugees as illegitimate, inappropriate, unfeasible and posing a threat to the UK labour market. Each discourse closes down a range of potential responses, leaving two ‘commonsense’ positions- either positioning refugees and asylum seekers as in need of remedial (individualised) training or support (see Wetherell & Potter 1992) or as oppositional/not fitting with the UK labour market, and thus requiring removal. Each discourse is discussed in turn. • Ethnocentric Credentialism (refugees as ‘illegitimate’ labour) We suggest that a form of ‘ethnocentric credentialism’ was clearly operating within the labour market experiences of refugees and asylum seekers in our sample. Qualifications, experiences and training gained in ‘other’ countries were consistently not recognised or were undervalued by employers, as compared to UK (and some other white, western European or American) qualifications and experiences. Noting the same phenomenon, Rosenkranz (2002) argues that this is largely an ‘artificially constructed disadvantage’ that is not based on any ‘real’ or objective criteria, and that is likely to have a real impact on refugee employment. For example, Nia, a qualified teacher from Central Africa, found that her skills and qualifications were not taken seriously and did not ‘count’ in England:

“… when you have been educated at a higher level you feel frustrated because you know when you talk about your skills, everybody laughs at you, not because they don’t think you have those skills really - […] [but] because you didn’t do it here, it’s not a skill.”

Indeed, Brown records from his own research that a representative from the Engineering Employers Federation was noted as making the assumption that refugees are from ‘third world’ countries and consequently are less skilled in technology (Brown, 1997 p.38). Numerous examples were provided in our research, spanning a range of sectors and types of job. For instance, Abbas, an Iranian graduate in electrical engineering, described his difficulties:

“Actually on one occasion, me and friend, we fill [an application] for a company […] for a job […]. We were really optimistic to get the job because the job wasn’t so difficult for us and didn’t want actually a lot of qualifications. It was repairing the vending machine which is a very simple system for an electrical engineer to do, and we both applied for it and we didn’t get even a refusal letter”.

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Employers’ negative preconceptions about overseas qualifications and experience appeared to impact particularly on black refugees and refugees from developing countries. However, the devaluing of other experience and credentials was also experienced by white European refugees, such as Maria:

“They [employers] don’t respect [us] - generally speaking they tend to think [that] people from Eastern Europe they are not educated… Yes, and I know for sure that this is. [But] East Europe, they have really good education. But for political reason […] my country is not a member of Europe Union so it means they can’t accept us” (Maria, from former Yugoslavia).

As we, and others have also found, the lack of recognition of ‘other’ qualifications is compounded by employers’ general failure to value the experiences and expertise that refugees had gained prior to arrival in Britain (London Research Centre, 1999; Bloch, 2004). Respondents reported feeling excluded where employers set criteria that only ‘home’ applicants would be likely to meet. For example, Claude described his experience of applying for jobs for which he had the required experience, and getting to the interview stage only to fail because the employer would suddenly demand UK experience. Like others, Claude felt that the privileging of UK experience was an excuse masking prejudice – and he even tried to challenge one employer on this at interview (“I wanted to show him that he’s not being fair”):

“You fill in an application form, you give them all the necessary information and during the interview, because they discover you are a refugee they start asking you questions such as ‘have you worked here for six years?’ (Claude, from the Cameroon, emphasis added)

Even when refugees did manage to secure employment, it was evident that they had been hired under lower expectations. For example, Farrokh recounted his experience of working in a clinic in London, where his employers had confessed to holding lower expectations of his abilities because they did not recognise his previous experience (they did not expect him to be at the same ‘level’ as a British employee). He noted his employers’ surprise when their assumptions about him were proved wrong by his actual performance:

“Yes, yes […] they just confessed that. They say ‘first time that we saw you we said that you are one of those [refugees] that come from another country and they were doing some kind of job and they can offer some services, but we never had any idea that your service is going to be at that level’ and I had a very good influence”.

Indeed, as Rosenkranz (2002: 7) argues, the lack of any formal obligation on employers to recognise non-European Union qualifications puts refugees at an ‘institutionally created disadvantage’, which is exacerbated by popular prejudiced assumptions of ‘other’ qualifications/experiences being ‘second rate’:

‘Apart from the ‘regulated professions’ most occupations in the UK do not require any formal recognition of foreign diplomas. It is up to the employer to assess whether the particular individual or particular qualification meets the workplace needs’ (Rosenkranz 2002: 80).

We suggest that these examples can all be understood as falling within a form of ethnocentric credentialism, in which the UK is positioned as providing the only ‘real’, recognisable and valuable qualifications and experience. This discourse works to position refugees and asylum seekers as an ‘illegitimate’ source of labour, mapping ‘traditional’ cultural racisms on to the field of qualifications and work experience and drawing boundaries between the ‘civilised’ /‘modern’ (qualifications/ employment of white, western counties) and the ‘uncivilised’/ ‘less advanced’ world of the Other. This form of discrimination plays a key role in generating and sustaining the under-employment of refugees. Indeed, Rosenkranz highlights how even gaining UK qualifications seems to make little difference to refugee employment prospects. A 1995 Home Office Report shows that ‘over half of those [refugees]

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with professional qualifications gained in Britain were still unemployed’ (emphasis added). A study by the Africa Educational Trust (1999) similarly found that amongst a sample of 122 refugee former grant applicants who had completed graduate studies in the UK, 35% still remained unemployed 4 to 5 years after graduation and those who were in employment were concentrated in low-level jobs. • Repulsion of the Other through the demand for ‘seamless integration’ (refugees as

‘inappropriate’ labour)

Across the transcripts of both refugees/ asylum seekers and employers, we noted employers’ preference for applicants whom they perceived might ‘seamlessly integrate’ in cultural terms into their organisation. Whilst a number of studies flag up issues of ‘cultural difference’ as barriers to employment (e.g. in the application procedure, Brown 1997; mbA Training Research and Development Ltd, 1999; Sargeant et al, 1999), we would like to explore how this discourse is rooted within a racist revulsion (and hence repulsion) of the Other that works to position refugees and asylum seekers as culturally alien and hence an ‘inappropriate’ pool of labour. Indeed, we would agree that ‘the notion of cultural difference has largely displaced the notion of biological difference as a basis for excluding or inferiorising’ (Anthias and Yuval-Davis 1992:14).

Participants recounted numerous examples of their applications being ignored or turned down on the basis of their cultural difference and Otherness. For example, Alem described how he approached a gallery to try to get his art exhibited, but was told that they were booked for two years in advance, however:

“I just left the hard copy just with the CD in another envelope and changed my name to John Smith or something and sent it. And she [gallery manager] offered me an exhibition in two months. I can’t prove that [it happened] because my name was different but I can reasonably assume that’s the reason why. So I went there and met the woman and I confronted her and she was very much surprised - she apologised” (Alem, from Ethiopia)

Like Alem, Nazgol also felt that employers discriminated against her application because they could ‘read’ her difference through her name and work experience history (in Tehran). She felt that deleting her previous work history and changing her name might allow employers to start to see past her cultural difference:

“I am thinking maybe if I change my name at least they can shortlist me and see my work [so they’re] not just thinking about my name is foreign person … I just thinking maybe I will change it [to] Zoe”.

Almost every refugee respondent had a story to tell about their own experiences of encountering prejudice and aversion (e.g. “he didn’t want to talk to us when he saw us. It was somehow difficult … and he didn’t even want to talk to us and he closed the door and just said ‘sorry we don’t want you’”, Abbas). Among employers, there was recognition of a common preference for candidates who are ‘like us’. This bias was justified by placing considerable importance on prospective staff being able to ‘seamlessly integrate’ into the workplace:

“You need to have the confidence to get around and not be phased by it. […] And it's also the ability then to actually seamlessly integrate with a new group of workers, and that's hard for a lot of people, and I suspect it's even harder for someone who comes from a culturally different background. […] The hardest thing is learning the culture and how you fit into the new environment, and I felt for a long time there's a need for more support” (Trevor Johnson, Director of recruitment agency, emphasis added).

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This assumption of ‘seamless integration’ as a natural and desirable phenomenon clearly places ‘Other’ applicants at a disadvantage, rendering them less desirable and potentially problematic. As both Trevor and John also indicate, issues of integration were framed in such a way that the burden of adaptation is placed upon the culturally different Other, who must change themselves (e.g. ‘learning the culture’) to adapt to the organisation, rather than the other way around. This echoes the sentiments of recent UK policy initiatives on citizenship and the integration of immigrants, placing the onus on the ‘Other’ to fit in to British society. The theme of ‘support’ in both accounts indicates a liberal narrative in which the (perceived) inability of an organisation to provide this suitable extra ‘support’ and resources becomes an ‘acceptable’ reason for discrimination. This construction defends the organisational status quo and removes any notions of blame or responsibility from employers, allowing it to be shifted instead to individual refugees or situational factors, such as organisational resources. The discourse of ‘seamless integration’ relies on a fuzzy, unarticulated ‘already known’ construction of the identity of the desirable/undesirable employee. Individual refugee respondents had difficulty pinning down and naming the aversion that they encountered:

“I think because when he found out that we are not English […] he didn’t even want to talk to us and he closed the door and just said ‘sorry we don’t want you’ […] We went there together to ask what has happened [and] […] he didn’t want to talk to us when he saw us. It was somehow difficult” (Abbas, from Iran).

However, as Caroline Evans (a white British manager for an insurance company) noted, these informal notions of who is ‘right’ (or ‘not right’) were operating freely within the labour market and could be detected in various forms. In the extract below, Caroline describes her realisation that black and minority ethnic candidates were not being put forward by the recruitment agency that supplied applicants for their vacancies because they were assumed to not fit the firm’s ‘mental image’:

“… we’ve actually had to go to our normal recruitment agency, not just recruiting professional posts but across the board, and actually say ‘look we’re interested in black ethnic minority people just as much as we’re interested in white people’ and some of the agencies have assumed and I don’t know whether they do it for everybody or whether they just do it for [us] because they have some mental image about what [we] want[s], they’ve assumed that they wanted that type of applicant screened out before the details are sent to us -which we’ve righted and – [Int: has that made a difference then?] We haven’t monitored that actually, from just - a sort of, a grapevine sort of hearing I think it has made a difference, well I think basically we weren’t getting any black and ethnic minority applicants coming through or very few and now we are, so - although we haven’t monitored, there is obviously some result”.

Within these broad notions of ‘fit’ and ‘suitability’, the axis of religion was flagged up as a particular marker of difference. As Farrokh put it, “Maybe some of the things that they [refugees] believe is not very well respected here or vice versa”.

“I suspect in the mainstream employment sector and also perhaps in the non-profit sector there's a lot of ignorance and myth about employing people from different cultures. Because actually if you've got a particular belief then you’ll be off 5 times a day to say your prayers for half a day, you wont actually work, and I've actually witnessed that ignorance in a supply chain firm some years ago. So, yes, I think there are challenges there […] “Where it [religion] may cause an issue for some - and perhaps for us – [is] if somebody is devout in their faith and has to leave work at 12.30 on a Friday to go to prayer - because that's what they do - and they don't come back. And I've known that happen…and you know, dare I suggest, [also in] the Jewish faith” (Trevor Johnson, Director of recruitment agency).

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As various commentators have written, contemporary manifestations of racism are often subtle, organised around forms of cultural, ethnic and religious difference and dismissed as cultural incompatibility (often referred to as ‘new’/’modern’ forms of racism (Barker, 1991; Solomos, 1989 in Anthias and Yuval Davis, 1992; Hall, 1992). As Anthias and Yuval-Davis argue, this definition of racism can include the ‘experiences of migrant ethnic groups, refugees and so on, which construct them as inferior, but not on the premise of a supposed racial categorisation, but as cultural, political or national outsiders and undesirables’ (in Anthias and Yuval-Davis 1992:11). • Fear of the ‘dangerous’ refugee (refugees as a threat to the workforce) Refugees, refugee agencies and community organisations and some employers, all recognised that discrimination was strongly driven by popular (print) media racist constructions of refugees and asylum seekers as dangerous and posing a potential threat to both society and the workforce/organisation. For example, Claude recounted how during a job interview he was asked why he came to London

“And I said ‘I came here because I have political problems’ and she said ‘are you a refugee?’ I said ‘yes’ and she went “I don’t think that will go down well with my manager” I was really frustrated”.

Muslim refugees were particularly negatively affected, following the upsurge in Islamaphobia in the wake of September 11th 2001, but this demonisation of refugees (as dangerous Muslim fundamentalists) extended even to non-Muslims. For example, Claude was not a Muslim, but had still experienced being subsumed within anti-Muslim prejudice:

“But even when I applied for those cleaning job, I always have barriers [employers saying] ‘oh you are a refugee, you’ve not been here long, we can’t employ you because of September 11th’…” (Claude, from Cameroon).

This perception was echoed in the views of organisations, as various organisational respondents described. For example, Trevor Johnson, from a recruitment agency, pointed to how the fear of terrorism impacts on employers’ thinking (“You know, ' I don't want to employ a Muslim terrorist' [is] a popular myth these days”). Arun Sanders, from a BEM Employment advice agency also recounted media stories of Muslim employees who had suffered terrible abuse, alongside a client (a Muslim nurse), “who was asked a question in an interview which I found quite outrageous”. Representatives from refugee agencies were able to provide various examples of the discrimination that their Muslim clients encountered, often conducted under the guise of ‘a good pretext’:

“Yes, I think recently we received the clients that they used to work and now they are unemployed, they’ve been made redundant and when we asked you know the individual he works in the food industry and […] as a manager, and he informed us that because he is an Arab, he has been made redundant, there is a fear that from, I think, after September the 11th there is a fear that, from internal sabotage and so, they made redundant all the Arab and possibly Muslim managers… I think there is a new trend towards religion and ethnic groups because of fear of terrorism and maybe they found a pretext, a good pretext and the pretext of fear of terrorism to discriminate and it’s a very good one actually” (Emwa Awan, representative for a refugee agency).

Negative, racist stereotypes were not limited to Muslim refugees but were also experienced by white Eastern European refugees:

“… the most common question is “where are you from?” And if I said ‘I am from Yugoslavia’ [they ask] “which part of Yugoslavia?” [I say] “From Serbia”. [They say] “Ah, Serbian butchers where they kill - are you really so violent people?” I always have to explain that I have never killed anybody” (Maria, from former Yugoslavia).

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As various theorists suggest, racism/s are formulated in relation to various axes of cultural difference, including ethnicity, ‘race’, nationality and religion, and often disparage the ‘non civilised’ character of the religion or culture in question (Anthias and Yuval-Davis 1992:13). Racisms include the ‘experiences of migrant ethnic groups, refugees and so on, which construct them as inferior, but not on the premise of a supposed racial categorisation, but as cultural, political or national outsiders and undesirables’, Anthias and Yuval-Davis 1992:11). Within such constructions, refugees and asylum seekers are positioned as threats to society and/or the workforce, hence discrimination against them can be justified or re-framed as a ‘rational’ response to the current ‘climate of fear’ that pervades the popular imagination. In line with the subtle nature of modern racisms, most refugee and community organisations felt that whilst they could not provide ‘hard evidence’ of racism and prejudice, they knew it played a key role in preventing refugees from entering employment and could provide various forms of anecdotal evidence relating to subtle incarnations of prejudice. For example, Gemma Ogundipe (manager of a community organisation) emphasised ‘I have no doubt it is out there’ and cited an example of a woman who wore a headscarf being told that there were no jobs available in an organisation, whilst finding out that a white English applicant had been later asked to come to an interview. Vanda Beheroozian felt that the media played a key role in creating negative images of refugees and asylum seekers, which clouded the views of employers:

‘You read in the papers it’s all against refugees and asylum seekers and TV everything is against refugees and asylum seekers […] it’s just refugees and asylum seekers that should be blamed, which is not fair…’

Sarah Melling agreed that negative media representations are picked up on by employers, who subsequently hold a false impression of refugees and other migrants: ‘everyone’s very wary about employing people from overseas because […] they perceive them to be illegal.’ Similarly Tara Hassan felt that from her own experience ‘as soon as they [employers] found out that these people are refugees then, they just didn’t offer the job.’ This in turn impacted on the confidence of refugees themselves (“they are worried about racism, they think that maybe because they are foreigners they don’t get the job”). • Language as an ‘objective’ barrier (refugees as an unfeasible source of labour) Many studies have identified the issue of language as a barrier to the employment of refugees and asylum seekers (London Research Centre 1999; Brown 1997; Sargeant et al, 1999; Bloch 2004). However we would like to explore in this section how the theme of language could be mobilised as a racialised discourse that sought to position refugees and asylum seekers as an ill-equipped (and hence unfeasible) pool of labour. Language differences were closely interwoven with cultural revulsion/ difference. For example Maria described how she’d returned a form to request an interpreter for an interview about her national insurance number but encountered hostility from her interviewer when an interpreter was not provided:

“… the other officer was, she was really angry with me because I couldn’t speak and I tried to - she asked me several times and every time she would say it louder, I’m not deaf, it isn’t a problem, you don’t have to tell it louder, just in different way or using simple words you know. I have problem with English, not with hearing. And in the end, she, when she put my papers in some folder she said to herself, but very loud, “silly woman!”. And I didn’t know the word but I could realise [it was] something bad and then when I went home, I opened my dictionary and I find what is the ‘silly’! […] People judge you by your way of speaking, you know, and if you can’t speak properly it means you are silly” (Maria, from former Yugoslavia).

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Whilst refugees/asylum-seekers often agreed that they needed to improve their language skills in order to become more employable, some felt that there were cases where their language skills did not constitute a relevant obstacle to employment but were held against them prejudicially. Despite Blunkett’s emphasis on the importance of English language proficiency in refugees’ access to employment, the Refugee Skills Net Report (London Research Centre, 1999) found that 48% of refugees who spoke fluent English were still unemployed. This led the report to conclude that ‘although English helped, it by no means solved the problem’. Furthermore, Brown’s (1997) study found that ‘there was little to suggest […] that lack of English language was the prime barrier to acquiring employment’ as on the whole, the job seekers’ level of English was found to be good (Brown, 1997:33). Similarly in this study, Munira had considerable teaching experience from her home country and felt that her language skills were strong enough to teach in London, especially given that there are many pupils in London for whom English is not a first language –and yet she was rejected for the job on the grounds of her language skills. Ayesha held a science degree and had worked as a lab technician in her home country of Eritrea, but also found that she could not get similar work in the UK due to concerns about her English. She contested this view, emphasising that her line of work should not require fully fluent English:

“Of course I feel yeah, the language it’s not so important [for being a lab technician] and erm, I thought as long as I can communicate, I can understand what they are talking, and if they can understand me, it’s OK. […] But when they won’t accept me, of course I feel disappointed because I used to work [in this job in Eritrea] for four years”

Alongside the issue of fluency, accent operated as a powerful embodied marker of cultural difference that attracted subtle yet potent forms of discrimination, positioning refugee job applicants as inappropriate or undesirable candidates, irrespective of their fluency:

“When you go to an interview and the accent also because you can’t speak the English with an English accent even if you are very good and you are fluent somehow it affects the interview you know. And I think it makes a difference if you can’t speak proper English or you have an accent” (Abbas, from Iran).

Munira also disagreed that her accent would cause any difficulties for the pupils she might teach

“… but I found in this country that nearly every pupil they have different accents and they understand each other. But in my teaching I know I am very successful and I can do it” (Munira, female, from Iraq).

Indeed, a range of cultural/ ethnic and racial factors were intermeshed and combined within constructions of embodied cultural/racialised difference, as Abbas put it:

“The other thing that I think you know because of my age you know age is very important too, […]and I think this kind of thing, your colour, your accent, your age, are very important as well as your experience”

As Bourdieu argues, habitus is embodied though language, appearance, accent and style – it is written on the body, and is revealed through taken for granted assumptions, practices and interpersonal styles - it reflects and guides what feels ‘natural’ and comfortable and is used to delineate ‘us’ from ‘them’. It is expressed through durable ways “of standing, speaking, walking and thereby of thinking and feeling”, eating speaking gesturing (Bourdieu 1990; 1984). Thus refugees/asylum-seekers can be disadvantaged in multiple ways within the job market simply on the basis of their lack of cultural knowledge and cultural differences, which are not valued or are negatively perceived/valued within the mainstream job market.

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• The production of ‘refugee’ as a racialised category: psychosocial effects and responses to ‘living’ and ‘managing’ subordination

Refugee/asylum-seeker status has achieved ‘folk devil’ (Cohen 1987) status in British popular discourse (See Rosenkranz’s discussion, 2002: 93; see also Daily Mail 2004b; The Express 2004a). As Shahana, from Iran, put it, private employers will not employ refugees and asylum seekers because they have a 'bad image in the media'. Within our data, we suggest that it operated as a racialised category that was located within a discourse of derision, fear and suspicion. As Anthias and Yuval-Davis (1992:9) point out, ‘migrant labourers may become ethnicized through state legislation and by the way they are identified by the indigenous population’ and ‘the explication of racisms cannot be undertaken purely with reference to ethnic or race phenomena’ (Anthias and Yuval-Davis 1992:3). Nia summed up this racialisation of refugee/asylum-seeker status within popular British discourse when she described how she felt employers treat applications from refugees. In fact, she felt that the discrimination in the job market heightened her sense of difference and was the only context within which she was acutely aware of this racialised refugee identity:

“it makes a lot of things in my mind when you say refugee, it’s like, it makes me […] , because how people perceive that is like you know, when you say you are European or Indian, African, it’s becoming like an ethnic group and it’s really - it’s a pity for me because you know, can be refugee but that’s not a colour[…] You know, I think many, many employers just think refugee when they- […] for example in an interview when you are asked about your life and maybe say something about that, and they say for example he’s a refugee, he doesn’t know the culture, he doesn’t know you know the job market, he doesn’t know the field you know. It’s prejudice but you do it unconsciously, I can say they are, they are discriminating but unconsciously, yes.[ …] when I think about being refugee, the only thing which comes in my mind in that employment is the only thing who make me think I am a refugee. The other things I don’t feel at all refugee, employment only. I don’t - you know, I don’t mind socialising, I don’t mind going anywhere I want. I don’t feel discriminated anywhere except in that field, yes. (Nia, from Central Africa, emphasis added)

The production of refugees and asylum seeker as racialised identities has occurred particularly within the field of employment. For example, refugees like Claude expressed their concerns about the media tirade against refugees as “scroungers” who just come to the UK to ‘milk the state’, and its inverse incarnation - the fear that they will ‘steal our jobs’ (e.g. see Daily Star 2004a,b; Times 2004). As Brown (1997) notes, ‘it is difficult to judge what impact such imagery and rhetoric has on the public and those who recruit labour but it is likely that some impact on attitudes has taken place’ (Brown, 1997:32). All our respondents were acutely aware of being positioned within such discourses and found the ‘scrounger’ label particularly distressing because they desperately wanted work and were forced to remain on benefits through necessity, not choice.

“I had a feeling that people think that you are just here maybe to benefit from the system but in my case I am willing to work. And what I am actually doing, I am coming here I am trying to bring up children at the moment I am trying to build up my way for my future because I want to work” (Shanny, from the Ivory Coast).

Living positions of subordination took its toll, generating feelings of shame and illegitimacy that were deeply etched on the psyche.

“And also you know they have this stereotype refugees are here to take the State’s money, yeah they have it [Interviewer: Have people said that to you?] No, but I’ve heard it, I’ve heard it yeah, I’ve heard it. And sometimes, to be honest with you, I’m ashamed to say I’m a refugee because every time you say in front of people you are

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trying to be honest but they turn it round “oh you’re just here to use us”. Yeah so sometimes I don’t like to discuss it with people. I will even give you a simple example [of] the course I’m doing at the moment […] I’ve heard people converse saying “oh you know we’re going to teach refugees and they’re here to milk the State” (Claude, from Cameroon, emphasis added).

Refugees engaged in various strategies to try and manage their disparaged identity positions. The most common was to try to ‘hide’ their refugee status from employers and colleagues. For example, Shahana felt that because of their ‘'bad image’, refugees try not to reveal their status to employers in case it affects their employment decision ('It would give them a negative impression, so they wouldn't get the job'). As noted in section 5, several of the more highly qualified respondents described trying to ‘down-grade’ their CVs in an attempt to find work. Farrokh, for instance, held extensive qualifications and experience, but found that he could not get employment at a higher level, so resorted to applying for lower level positions for which he was over-qualified.

“I had different interviews but I think personally my problem was most of them contacted me and they said ‘you are over skilled and over qualified’. That was a problem so I changed my CV and I just reduced the qualifications that I had and the years of experience and everything. So in that time I had a better chance to get a job.”

Farrokh eventually found employment in a lower level position after having to down-play his qualifications and experience – and as noted earlier, his employers were consequently surprised at his abilities. A 1999 report from the Africa Educational Trust concluded that ‘the majority of refugees work in informal, short-term, low paid, menial jobs with no job security’. This position, we would argue, feeds back into popular assumptions of ethnocentric credentialism, in which refugees are assumed to lack high level skills and abilities. Some respondents were trying to negotiate an alternative ‘acceptable’ response that would be sensitive to this hostility in society, which was organised around their own adaptation and change to fit the dominant norm. As noted below, Nazgol advocated striving not to be seen as trying to ‘impose’ her cultural differences upon British society, which she frames as an attempt to circumvent the emotional aspects of racism and cultural aversion:

“I wanted to get enough information to adapt myself to this society. Not just to impose on it. I think one of the problems is when you go to a new country as a refugee you cannot impose on them. […] People don’t know anything about the laws you know, they deal with their emotions. They deal one to one, face to face. So it is just getting information to know where am I you know (Nazgol, from Iran, emphasis added).

A few participants expressed more resistant sentiments as they tried to reframe their presence and difference as a positive benefit to British society:

“They usually think O.K. they are taxpayers and ‘what are you doing here?’ Just claiming benefits and doing nothing. But gradually, gradually you can prove that we are not here just to get benefits. We are here to pay the tax and also to provide some services that you have never had in your history here” (Farrokh).

However, it was also evident that popular British racist discourse was being internalised by respondents, who felt that racism was increasing in line with the (what is popularly perceived to be) increased entrance of asylum-seekers into the country:

“Well I thought there was not any sort of racism at all. I either didn’t notice or probably well, I haven’t seen racist people until recently in the past five years probably and the reason that this racism start is because the refugees become overcrowded and they will keep trying getting into England” (Daddar, from Iraq)

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The powerful impact of racisms upon the psyche, and well-being of refugees and asylum seekers (not to mention upon their likelihood of accessing employment) was evident, and various individuals were aware of the need to protect themselves:

“But I don’t complain too much, it [racism] makes me aware of it, it makes me aware of it and be guarded, you know. I have friends who are completely destroyed by all this [...] so its just kind of affects you in a very, very serious way, it stops you from trying to work with different groups of people it makes you biased [...] and bitter, which really limits your professional or other capacities. I don’t want that build up in me, because I used to do art before I came here, why should I stop because somebody is stupid enough to come up with silly idea?” (Alem, from Ethiopia).

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8.2 Discrimination on the grounds of Religious or Political Belief No respondents in the study felt that there were any particular examples or experiences of discrimination in the UK on the grounds of an individual’s political views. A number of refugees and asylum seeker respondents were clearly in the UK because they had fled political (or religious) persecution in their countries of origin (e.g. “I came here because I have political problems”, Claude), but none felt that their political beliefs impacted at all on their access to UK employment. Among employers, the issue of political belief was similarly felt to be a ‘non-issue’. Indeed, the issue of political belief was only discussed by one local government organisation in the context of party politics (with respect to a few key posts, for which post-holders were not allowed to hold party political membership, so as to avoid the potential for vested interest). For the majority of employer respondents however, a common view was summed up by Grace Wright: “I don't believe there are any barriers at all, people are very respectful to each other for their political beliefs. I've personally not come across anybody who's had a really big disagreement and it has been a problem”. Similarly Sarah Tomlinson, said “it’s not something I’ve ever known having a conversation about really”. However, a potential lack of respect and tolerance was hinted at within the interview with Robert Smythe who suggested that diverse political beliefs were only not an issue so long as they were kept quiet and were not shared within the workplace:

“… in general, no, political beliefs etc would [not be an issue]- I mean as long as then this person is not in the organisation and spouting all his beliefs and upsetting other people I suppose” (Robert Smythe, Assistant Director at an NHS hospital).

The issue of inclusive workplaces is raised and developed further below, within the context of religious discrimination. Different views, however, emerged within the sample as to whether refugees/asylum-seekers face discrimination in the job market on the grounds of religious belief. Within our samples of refugees, employers and refugee/ community organisations, respondents were divided - with some pointing to examples and evidence of such prejudice (notably within the context of discrimination against Muslims) but others arguing that religious belief had no impact on access to employment. Refugees’ Views on Islamaphobia As has been amply documented, the problem of Islamaphobia- or prejudice against Muslims- is rife in British society. Islamaphobia was described by interviewees as manifesting in various ways- ranging from discrimination against individual women who wear hijab, to a general distrust of Muslims as potential ‘terrorists’. For example, whilst Ayesha herself did not wear hijab, she described how her friends had encountered problems:

“Erm, I do not face it myself but I hear from some girls that if they, especially in - like if they are applying for job like sales assistant or something like that, if they are covered, like their wearing scarves, sometimes they will not accept them, they say sorry we don’t have [you]” (Ayesha, from Eritrea).

A couple of respondents also highlighted a less clear-cut, but equally pervasive, lack of respect for certain religious or cultural traditions.

“Yes definitely because everyone who comes here as a refugee they have different backgrounds, they have different beliefs, different religion. Maybe some of the things that they believe is not very well respected here or vice versa” (Farrokh).

As detailed previously, the events of September 11th 2001 were felt to have fuelled a wider public distrust and fear of Muslims, which both employers and individual refugees bore witness to:

“But even when I applied for those cleaning job, I always have barriers “oh you are a refugee, you’ve not been here long, we can’t employ you because of September 11th

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….Yeah, somebody said to me “no, for security reasons, we like to employ people who have been here more than five years who we can check their background”. (Claude, from Cameroon).

However, when asked whether they had personally ever experienced any problems or discrimination in terms of religious or political belief, most refugees emphasised that they had not experienced any particular issues. It was notable, however, that numerous refugee interviewees interpreted this question in relation to their own beliefs and claimed that because they were not overtly religious, they should not attract excessive discrimination. For example, Munira replied “I don’t have any problem with religion” [emphasis added] and Hamed emphasised that Iranian people, like himself, are ‘very keen to be integrated’:

“No. I never talk about religion. I get respect from all other people that have different religions and I respect all of them. I don’t have any problem with religion” (Munira, from Iraq).

“No, no, no. Iranian people are very different than others I think so in my opinion. In terms of integration the Iranian people are very keen to be integrated in the new society” (Hamed, from Iran).

In other words- many refugees and asylum seekers seemed to adopt an assimilationist/ secularist perspective that would question the validity of asserting strong religious or political beliefs – or indeed that would expect such beliefs to be accommodated or taken account of within British society. Contrary to popular media stereotypes and discourse, refugees from Muslim countries did not necessarily assert (strong) religious identities:

“What I found out because I am working with the Kurdish community so I found out in the Kurdish community they are not religious, they are more nationalism than religion because I found out they are very easy to enter society, very easy to integrate with society. So the majority of our member clients, or they’ve got a friend or sometimes they need the British society or the community, they don’t, they don’t take it seriously regarding the religion. (Sabar, from Iraq).

However, Sabar’s quote still hints that integration in Britain is easier for those Muslims who “don’t take it seriously regarding the religion”, which implies that devout or practising Muslims will find it more difficult to ‘integrate’ than secular Muslims.

Employers’ Views on Islamaphobia and Religious Discrimination Employers were divided as to whether they felt that religious discrimination was an issue or not. Among those who recognised it as a problem, examples were cited of how this form of prejudice could impact on both the recruitment and retention of religious minorities. For example, Trevor Johnson noted how some employers may regard Muslim candidates as less desirable due to the assumption that a practising Muslim will do less work or will be less likely to ‘fit in’:

“I suspect in the mainstream employment sector and also perhaps in the non-profit sector there's a lot of ignorance and myth about employing people from different cultures. Because actually if you've got a particular belief [it is assumed] then you’ll be off 5 times a day to say your prayers for half a day, you wont actually work, and I've actually witnessed that ignorance in a supply chain firm some years ago. So, yes, I think there are challenges there” (Trevor Johnson).

“It goes back to the manager you know, the thought of [whether to be] recruiting somebody who is less likely to fit in” (Caroline Evans, manager for a private insurer).

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Both of the recruitment firms in the study provided examples of Muslim clients being disadvantaged in terms of their retention and progression due to the preponderance of exclusionary workplace cultures that do not respect a diversity of beliefs and lead minority group members to feel uncomfortable and out of place.

“… one of our clients actually had all the skills and experience to do a particular role in the accountancy field but when she joined the organisation she wasn’t happy about starting in terms of, you know, the language that they used. Sort of like bad language that was used, smoking, and just the general attitude of the staff. And because of her religious background it just - it went against a lot of the things that she actually believed in and because of that she left the job. It wasn’t because she wasn’t happy with the contents of the job or anything like that, she was able to do the job perfectly but because of the lack of respect I suppose or lack of awareness people have about other people’s religion. She just felt that she couldn’t stay there any more so she left. […] she probably didn’t feel comfortable about saying to them well why do you have to smoke in here, why are you swearing because they’ve always done that and it’s, she wanted to fit in with them but she felt that she was compromising far too much from a religious point of view so she just left and sought employment elsewhere” (Vicky Sharp, project co-ordinator for a recruitment agency).

Vicky also provided another example:

“Or, we’ve had a young Asian client that you know she was working in an organisation which was predominantly male and some of the sort of, the sort of remarks that were made towards her were inappropriate as far as she was concerned and she left because of that as well. And that’s because they couldn’t quite understand her culture and her beliefs and where she was coming from so they just thought well you know, this is what we’ve always done so we’re gonna carry on doing it like this. And she felt it was an impossible environment for her to work in so she left as well”.

Some employers also recounted similar examples: “I also do know of a couple of places where people have left because they’ve felt that they were not understood by their team […] but I do know that there are parts of the business where because different religions are not well understood it is harder for them to fit in” (Caroline Evans, Manager for a private insurer).

These extracts all highlight the problems arising when the burden of responsibility for change and accommodation (“fitting in”) is placed on the individual employee, rather than the organisation as a whole. By way of contrast, a number of employer respondents emphasised that they felt religious discrimination is not a problem- or, more precisely, is not an issue here (in their organisation). For example, Zahida Jagtiani, HR manager for a charity organisation, felt that people with different religious beliefs are “accommodated”. A couple of other employers felt that it was only an issue for other people, namely ‘genuinely prejudiced’ individuals or among ‘less intelligent or less articulate’ people:

“It can only be an issue where there is genuine prejudice and ignorance. You know, 'I don't want to employ a Muslim terrorist' being a popular myth these days I suspect […] and the sector we deal with people tend to be articulate and intelligent and know that you are more likely to have trouble employing anyone coming from the US than you are employing a Muslim” (Trevor Johnson, director of a recruitment agency).

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As various critics have written, the problem with such views is that they can tend to deny the existence of institutional forms of racism and also the less subtle, ‘modern’ forms of racism that can be enacted unwittingly (see Miles, 1989; Anthias and Yuval-Davis, 1992). A few employer respondents also expressed what might be considered to be prejudiced views about religious minorities, for example, worrying that Muslim employees take too much time off for prayers and/or expressing crude stereotypical assumptions and views about different religious groups:

“Where it may cause an issue for some and perhaps for us, if somebody is devout in their faith and has to leave work at 12.30 on a Friday to go to prayer, because that's what they do, and they don't come back, and I've known that happen. And you know, dare I suggest, the Jewish faith. There are Jewish businesses, in fact, I was told a while ago, that I should get a Jewish dentist because they work Saturdays apparently or work Sundays, but I never thought of that before, no taking time off work” (Trevor Johnson, director of a recruitment agency) “I think some, some religions will be less likely to move around anyway and I think [some are] generally more loyal. This is just my opinion and it’s not the opinion of [this organisation] at all and it’s just from real general experience and sort of speaking to people (Caroline Evans, manager for a private insurer).

Accommodating diversity or promoting inclusive cultures? Organisations varied in their approaches to dealing with religious diversity. A couple of employers described adopting pro-active approaches, in which equality issues constituted central, ongoing areas of concern. For example, these organisations surveyed employees’ needs and continuously assessed and monitored the institutional culture to try to develop appropriate responses and changes. Issues of equality, and the importance of being respectful of difference, were encapsulated in the missions and policies of such organisations and guided recruitment and staff policies.

“In our Mission Values and Statement, and the way that we recruit people we look for people who are respectful to other people's thoughts and beliefs despite having very different views it's all about being individual I think that's part of the diversity that you are different, that you treated respectfully…” (Zahida Jagtiani, HR manager for a charity organisation).

“We have, again from an HR perspective, we have just done a staff survey to try and identify what will all the different religions are within the organisation. We try and, we have a calendar here with all the different religious festivals and are encouraged to try and avoid certain dates with a view to meetings or major events. And then there is kind of active engagement with the various communities for them to contribute to the policy development process, so if we are developing something we want to get their views and consult with them right at the start, is this going to have an adverse effect on your policy and what are we not aware of how that can… What else? Again around the recruitment process it would be trying to avoid setting inter dates on particular religious days, catering, tastes, music and all the groups.” (Grace Wright, HR manager of a large public sector organisation).

“The thing at [this company] is that we tend to ‘do’ before we write policy on, our vision is taking care of the life in our hands and we’re pretty hot on that both for customers and for our staff. […] It tends to get to a point where we think hey actually we should be writing policy on this and then it’s quite easy to write a policy because actually we’ve been doing [it]. We’ve been employing fairly for a long time and so it tends to be that we tend to revise the policy when we get an employee idea. For

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example this week we had an idea from a gay man who said “Did you know the policy has not got sexual orientation on it?” and we thought oh goodness. Now it has, although we have been sort of employing fairly as far as sexual orientation and religion and belief is concerned for quite a long time. It’s just that we’ve not written it down, if that makes sense? (Caroline Evans, Manager for a private insurer).

The importance of fostering inclusive informal workplace cultures was also recognised. For example:

“We do find that our managers don’t sort of expect things like, you know. They don’t say things like ‘oh you know, we all go out to the pub on a Friday and if we’re gonna have a Moslem then they’re not gonna want to come’ because that’s not the way we work” (Caroline Evans).

A couple of organisations also felt it to be important to ‘raise awareness’ of religious diversity issues within their wider workforce, to help improve inter-ethnic understandings and respect.

“We aim to sort of do our own bit in terms of educating staff about the importance of being culturally aware of an individual's religious needs/beliefs. When the major religious festivals take place we had a sort of email out to everybody which explains what goes on, on this particular day, and what the implications are for their colleagues. So we did one at the start of Ramadan saying ‘this is what it's all about and this is what it means for somebody who is a Muslim and one of the things that you might find that they might be a bit sort of sleepier and a bit less sort of even tempered, particularly if they've just started their fast, because it takes a while to get used to it, sort of thing, so please bear with them’. It was Diwali on Monday so we sent round again a little thing, not quite so demanding really, because Diwali is a fun thing so there were sweets delivered to all of the sites, for people to eat, and we will do one for Yon Kippur and we will do …certainly we've got something prepared for Eid coming up in about 17 days time I think” (John Allier, HR Manager, Housing Association).

“I think again it’s at the base of it all is communication and in fact this year, I must get down to it. I’m going to be instigating an awareness campaign in our newspaper, we have a two weekly newspaper, a little tabloid, and at each of the main religious dates across the year we’ll have an article on that religion with somebody, a [name of organisation] employee talking about what it means for them, in the practical things like dress code and days off, days that they class as religious days, the holidays that they have. So just a sort of informal way of raising awareness (Caroline Evans, manager for a private insurer).

The most common response across organisations to issues of religious diversity was encapsulated within an approach that might be termed ‘catering for religious difference’: this approach emphasised the provision of facilities such as prayer rooms, holidays, food, festivals and uniform.

“We've got a room in this building where certainly on Friday's Muslim staff can go and pray, and its got a wash basin in it to do the sort of washing before prayers, but that room is sort of multi-faith and so if people need somewhere to go and pray, if they are Christians say, they can use it, or if they need a place to go and calm down for a bit, so it's called our White Reflection Room” (John Allier, HR Manager, Housing Association). “It used to be just a quiet room or a sort of chill out room and now it’s used, it is used for all faiths and for anybody” (Caroline Evans, Manager for a private insurer).

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“We adapt, we adapt to people’s needs so for instance, pieces of uniform supplied for covering heads- we actually make those up and make those available for people. We supply rooms for praying, it really - there are no issues you know, we just ask what your needs are and they are accommodated in most cases. We know that Jewish people are going to want certain holidays, we’re in a Jewish community and we have to work with that. So really no, I think we have enough insight to know that you have to cater for these things”. […] In the catering function making sure that we had themed lunches you know, that sort of thing. So, yeah, and I think because of where we are we probably pay more attention to that particular thing” (Sarah Tomlinson, manager for a major retailer).

These forms of provision were, undoubtedly, welcome and important practices that contributed to the creation of inclusive cultures within the workplace. However, this type of ‘multicultural’ approach to equality and diversity issues may have some limitations. As Rattansi (1992) cogently discusses, multicultural approaches to diversity (popularly termed the ‘saris, samosas and steel bands’ approach) tend to focus on accommodating festivals and food, rather than tackling entrenched inequalities and racist practices and cultures. For example, solely addressing religious discrimination in terms of the capacity for individuals to pray at work or celebrate religious holidays does little to tackle differential wider issues such as differential pay gaps or rates of retention, promotion and progression. For example, no employers reported engaging in other activities, such as monitoring pay or rates of application or promotion across a diverse workforce and the importance of implementing appropriate action plans. Furthermore, useful consideration might also be given to the source of impetus for engaging in equalities work - whilst some employers (e.g. Grace Wright, HR manager for a large public sector organisation) described equalities concerns as central to the remit and ethos of their organisation, others seemed to be responding for more pragmatic reasons. For example, one interviewee described how the organisation’s responsiveness to Jewish concerns was solely a local issue (which differentiated them from their head branch) which arose purely as a function of the branch location (“we’re in a Jewish community and we have to work with that…. I think because of where we are we probably pay more attention to that particular thing”). In another case, a respondent suggested that the driving force behind a recent policy regarding time off for religious practices was instigated by managers who wanted to know ‘what is and isn’t allowed’. Indeed, this interviewee underlined how his organisation’s implementation of this policy at the time of the Race Relations Amendment Act was purely ‘coincidental’:

“We’re just about to introduce a policy on time off for religious beliefs and prayer etc., […] so I mean I suppose in retention issues yes because if we’re actually trying to meet the needs of the diverse workforce that would help with retention. ….I mean it’s not actually […] because of the new legislation coming in December […] managers were asking the questions [like] ‘my member of staff wants to do XYZ and what do I do about it?’ […] I think the managers wanted some guidelines really as to what they could and couldn’t allow, I suppose. I think it was from the managers asking for it. But I mean it was really just coincidental with this law that’s coming in anyway on religious discrimination that type of thing, [RRAA] regulations”.

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8.3 Cross-cutting themes: Language The majority of refugees and asylum seekers interviewed (17/22) cited English language proficiency as a key barrier to employment. Only 5 people did not mention the role of language, and of those, Claude, had a degree in English and Abdul, had studied at Masters level in the UK, so it may be reasonable to assume that they had a good command of English. Several employers also felt that fluency in English was specific barrier facing refugees. Several refugees felt that language constituted the main barrier for refugees in achieving employment. Munira, from Iraq, claimed ‘that’s the only thing, you can’t get the job because of your language that’s the only problem.’ Hamed, a qualified teacher from Iran, also felt that for refugees, ‘the main barrier is their English, the level of their English language…They have the knowledge of the job but they are not confident about their English’. Sabar from Iraq, also felt that despite being able to speak English in theory, it could take considerable time to adjust to spoken English and different dialects and accents, which could impact negatively on refugees’ personal confidence:

‘I found for a start I found it very honestly very different socially, the whole system was different for me so I really needed to get myself acquainted with everything that I thought I knew from scratch including English. I thought my English was not bad when I was there but the first couple of weeks I couldn’t even understand what the news said, the pronunciation is so different. [In the past] I had Canadian professor, I had American professor, I had English professor, and hadn’t had any problem picking up the accent but, it was altogether a different story when I come here…’

Several refugee interviewees found that their level of English language proficiency was something that let them down at the first hurdle of job application procedures, and this was a key issue that employers picked up on also. Steven Rose, (HR Officer from a large public sector organisation) claimed ‘I think the key problems [...] may be on language issues….’ He believed that if refugees could learn English earlier, then they might enter the job market far more easily. Maria, from former Yugoslavia, concurred, highlighting how, in a highly competitive job market, skills and qualifications were not enough, she described a post interview discussion:

‘I was disappointed at first, but erm - because they told me when I asked for feedback they told me you was good in all the interview, you cover all the requirement but only because there is a lot of competition with other, with, they have more, better English than you…’

Brown’s (1997) research found that lack of competence in English language can hinder the job seeking process through an inability to write convincing letters or CVs and difficulties in managing interview situations. Similarly in our research, Caroline Evans (Manager for a private insurer), pointed out that communication is key at interview stage, such that applicants for whom English is not a first language tend to encounter problems (‘trying to persuade us of those competences at an assessment day or at an interview and just the basic language barrier to actually find out that they do have those competences’). The Language barrier and prejudice Many other studies have identified the issue of language as a key barrier to the employment of refugees and asylum seekers (e.g. London Research Centre 1999; Brown 1997; Sargeant et al, 1999; Bloch 2004), revealing similar issues to those discussed above. However we discussed previously in Section 8.1, language was mobilised as a racialised discourse that

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sought to position refugees and asylum seekers as an ill-equipped (and hence unfeasible) pool of labour. Often language issues were interwoven with other, more complex notions, of integration and acceptability, as illustrated in the following quote from Sarah Tomlinson:

“Well good English is important especially on the shop floor, the customers expect it and certainly a level of understanding. For emergencies you need somebody to have a good level of understanding as to what things are going wrong and what they should be doing about it. So yes, there could be an issue if people didn’t have a good understanding of the English language and this is the language that’s spoken in this company and we are actually actively discouraging small groups to speak in their mother tongue around their colleagues because it’s actually quite isolating and seen to be a little bit rude”

As the above extract indicates, there is a popular assumption that the dominant/ primary language of the workplace should be English, which is justified not only in terms of ‘safety’ but also in terms of etiquette and workplace relations. One potential implication of this view, however, is that the ‘Other’ is assumed to bear the burden of responsibility for assimilation and change – lacking the right to maintain or display their cultural difference. According to the Race Relations Act, ‘Indirect discrimination involves the imposition of a condition or requirement which applies equally to everyone but is harder for people from particular racial groups to satisfy, and which, when balanced against the discrimination which results cannot be justified, for example requiring an inappropriately high standard of English’ (Racial Equality and The Asylum and Immigration Act 1996: A guide for employers in compliance with the Race relations Act 1976 Commission for Racial Equality London: Belmont Press p5). Yet a number of respondents felt that this kind of discrimination was applied to them. Language as an asset? A report by the London Research Centre (1999) argues that ‘the government should consider ways of promoting a more understanding and informed attitude towards asylum seekers among the media and the public; […] to include an appreciation of the useful qualities many of them bring to Britain’. A few employers, working in more multi-cultural organisations, emphasised how employing people who speak other languages could be an asset to the company, particularly where it reflects the interests of the community. For example, John Allier (HR manager in a Housing Association) notes that with so many languages in the community, it is an asset to have staff with different language skills:

“I think what the organisation is trying to recognise is that if you do treat everybody the same, that in itself, isn't going to deliver. If for instance somebody can't access the service because they don't have sufficient grasp of English as a communication tool or whatever, so we are aiming to find services that are more tailored and we have a call centre where the staff speak a variety of the community languages”.

Sarah Tomlinson also recognised that speakers of other languages could be an asset to the company (even if employees were dissuaded from speaking other languages on the shop floor):

‘Well we have actually got, we actively run a list of, an interpreters list, we want lots of languages on our interpreters list, we get customers from all walks of life and there are gaps at the moment in that so that would be really useful to be able to say to the customers we now have this language available…’ (Sarah Tomlinson, manager for a major retailer).

Many refugees in our sample were actively using their other language skills in a work setting: Daddar had undertaken an interpreting course so that he could be an interpreter; Sabar undertook a lot of translation work for the Kurdish community; Claude helped out by teaching English at a local multi-cultural community centre; Hamed taught at a community centre;

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Ayesha taught Arabic (as a volunteer) and Shanny supported children for whom English is a second language.

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8.4 Cross-Cutting Themes: Health (mental and physical) Mental Health Both employers and individuals made reference to the effects suffered by refugees who had experienced trauma. Many of the refugee interviewees described the anguish they felt as a result of their previous experiences. As Stewart highlights, ‘the psychological impact of being forced to leave your country of birth is very traumatic’ and can cause extreme depression and anxiety (Stewart, 2003:12). Sabar illustrates this poignantly, explaining how refugees have often experienced distress and hardship, which impact on their ability to settle in the host country:

‘[T]he majority of the refugees and asylum seeker from the third world countries […] the majority of them they come from atrocity regime or the civil war as well they left behind the family for example, the male or female they arrive here, some of them they’ve got a family behind so it is more important for them how to be, reunion as a family, more than anything else, so they concentrate on the immigration issue, family reunion and sometimes as I said the language…[it] becomes very difficult to enter the labour market…’

Similarly, Daddar explained how he was relieved to come to the UK because it was in a ‘peaceful state’, allowing him to escape his ordeal of torture, kidnapping and bombs in Iraq. He felt traumatised by his previous experiences, and emphasised the importance of providing people like himself with support to adjust (“some of them they come here, they come from the war and depression and the fight and genocide so when they come here, they need the time to prepare”). Some refugees tried to reframe their experiences more positively, indicating how they had gained strength through their hardships. Hamed, for instance, felt that his personal history had given him key insights and resilience that would enable him to cope with a tough teaching job – making him a potential asset within inner city schools:

I have heard that here in public [state] schools in London […]that […] have lots of trouble with the students, I thought I am the person who can deal with the trouble makers because in Iran the areas that I went as a teacher- very deprived places and the students with no perspective for their futures you know and inside they feel empty and always they want to make revenge from their situation, and obviously in this situation they do very wrong things, and very unexpected things that in my experiences. I could deal with these kind of students. And I feel I am tough enough to take this tough responsibility…’

There were various testimonials to the considerable bravery and mental strength of refugees who tried their best to overcome their suffering and pain to try to rebuild their lives: As Nia recounted: ‘You suffer but you have to, to, to you know, to transcend that stage of suffering and act and you know, work for the future’. Nia found that working with widows of war helped her to get through her own trauma, as she helped others in a similar situation:

‘I did for the organisation about widows and orphans of war it was a voluntary organisation, I was in that condition myself, I was a widow of war and I felt I could help women in my condition who hadn’t my chance who hadn’t been educated, who couldn’t understand what’s going on, I was in that terrible situation but I thought I had many things to share with others and I tried to get other women, other widows and tried you know to see how we could [overcome] that situation, but at the same time think of our future. That was important work, yes.’

Some employers seemed aware that some refugees may suffer from emotional issues and/or trauma, but they did not always feel able to empathise. For instance, Vicky Sharp,

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from a recruitment firm, described a woman who registered with their agency, but would not work in a hospital:

“Her reason behind that was because she didn’t like working in a hospital environment where there was going to be blood and you know perhaps exposure to other people’s tragedies because of her own personal experiences which at first I didn’t, I wasn’t able to empathise in a way because I couldn’t understand where she was coming from”.

Since this encounter, however, Vicky now felt that she was able to better understand how some refugee clients may have particular needs and that their traumatic experiences might entail certain consequences with regard to the nature and type of employment sought. She highlighted the importance of being sensitive to potential problems and of taking prompt, practical steps to support and help employees to cope within difficult work situations:

“We had somebody who worked in a front desk sort of position and who had come through a particular traumatic experience somewhere, and it left them unable to deal with people coming at them, they would just sort of flip out really and have to leave the desk. And it was only when we sort of….or when the management began to make this connection, and when it was quiet they were fine, efficient and in control, prompt. When things got busy, or things got difficult and some of our sort of tenants can, with the best will in the world only be described as quite challenging. They couldn’t cope. It's a difficult thing to raise, but it’s one of those things if you ignore it, it won't necessarily go away so they sort of bit the bullet with them and it got out that there was this issue, and said ‘okay so what can we do about this? And we fixed them up with some confidential counselling, which we paid for’ (Vicky Sharp, project co-ordinator from a recruitment firm).

As Caroline Evans also suggested however, many employers may hold prejudicial beliefs about refugees – assuming that they will be less capable of doing the job - due to concerns about the in/stability of their mental health:

“[T]hey come with additional baggage but it’s in a sort of polite way. I think they feel you know that they are here because of something which has happened which might be quite major in their past, possibly not yet resolved. And may not have their mind completely on the job’.

John Allier (HR manager at a Housing Association), also worried that some refugees may not be able to deal with ‘difficult situations’ at work, and may require additional support, because of past traumatic experiences (‘if that situation somehow reflects back to something that's happened to them in where they came from’). One suggestion for helping to tackle these issues was made by Trevor Johnson, who recommended that it would be useful for employers to be given examples of refugees and asylum seekers who have successfully overcome the traumatic experiences in their life, and settled into jobs:

‘It’s also [useful] having case studies of how it has successfully been done, you know ‘here is a person from this background who saw his mother and father shot and whatever else, came here traumatised but with these skills and once they’d settled down and developed the language skills which are key, they then did the appropriate training, had the mentoring scheme, had the support, took on a job and they are now doing this.’

Hannah Cartwright, (a manger in an NGO) further suggested that the experiences refugees have been through can be enlightening, and hence of benefit for the organisation:

‘[Y]ou know […]that [they] have suffered and you know in their own country, and that’s their reason for leaving because they’ve been prosecuted in their country so I think as an organisation , the type of organisation we are, I think that they bring a

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perspective to this organisation in terms of some of the injustices we are sort of you know actively sort of working against’.

Isolation and loneliness Several of our interviewees felt that their heightened emotional state was compounded by the isolation they experienced when arriving in the country. For example, Shanny revealed how she suffered from depression when she first came to the UK from the Ivory Coast, because she was pregnant and felt very alone, having no friends or family around her to help. She said described being “very, very stressed”, but her GP actively tried to help her build a network of friends for emotional support, referring her for counselling and to a women’s welfare group, to find emotional support through friendship and integration. Fozia similarly described how she found starting again in a new society - where she did not know anything or anyone - very traumatic: ‘Because when you come here, you are lost, you don’t know where you can start…if you are not strong enough you can get mad’. High levels of unemployment and the confusing and uncertain process of waiting for immigration status can further compound feelings of isolation and depression, denying individuals opportunities for further social integration. As Stewart points out, the emotional impact of waiting for an immigration decision is a very ‘stressful time’ (Stewart, 2003:12). Several interviewees expressed their feelings of insecurity when they were waiting for this decision – which was often expressed in terms of being in limbo and unable to get on with life.

‘[On receiving a decision] I was happy, yeah, I feel like - I feel relieved, after I got told I could do something with my life because you know like [...] you don’t know what’s gonna happen to you, you don’t feel like doing anything, because you never know, like your life is stuck somewhere, that’s how you feel you know, you feel sad, you feel angry, you feel like – [Interviewer: lots of emotions?] Yeah, you don’t feel right in your mind you know, - because you never know what’s gonna happen to you because it’s not easy to start somewhere and go back to your country […] like someone is pushing you around, they’re pushing you around you know so you feel like you are rejected…’ (Catrina, from Angola).

Nazgol also reveals how waiting for the immigration decision made her stressed and worried and articulates similar negative feelings that derive from a state of “not moving on, not going anywhere”:

‘It still make me worried for long time because you don’t know who you are, are you resident here or not resident. And erm, a lot of problems when you are not resident, a lot of, a lot of situations you can’t go any further’

Within such a context, the experience of failing to get a job – or indeed, having to take a job that is perceived to be far beneath one’s previous level- was experienced as extremely upsetting and traumatic. Stewart’s (2003) research highlights the experiences of refugee doctor’s - many of whom had left powerful and influential positions in their country of origin, to experience joblessness on entering the UK (Stewart, 2003; see also Weaver 2001). Bloch (2004) also found that many refugees in her sample had faced a loss of occupational status since arriving in this country, which negatively impacted on their social status and well-being. Colic-Peisker (2003) and mbA (1999) found that many of the refugees in their studies expressed considerable frustration at being underemployed, and felt exploited by their refugee status. Interviewees in our study reported similar negative effects on their self-esteem and psyche due to experiencing a loss of social standing and occupational status. These views were expressed across the board, from engineers to teachers, to designers. Fozia, for example, found the loss of professional status particularly upsetting and frustrating. She explained how in her country of origin she was very active in her research career but said ‘When I came here, I just stopped doing things.’

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Lack of confidence constituted both a barrier to employment and an acute psychological problem for individual refugees (a point also borne out by previous research, e.g. Sargeant et al, 1999; Bloch 2004; The London Research Centre1999). Claude, very movingly, disclosed acute feelings of despair at persistently failing to get job offers; desperately yearning for a chance to prove himself.

‘[I]t’s really frustrating to tell you the truth, it’s really, really frustrating. I had days where I was like crying the whole day, I was sitting here crying, I said to myself what’s happening, am I stupid? What’s really happening? Because I said to myself I don’t really understand, why am I not - and it’s not - to be honest, I’m not too demanding, I am prepared to do a cleaning job because I know that this is not my country, by doing it I will prove myself, I will probably move quickly because I know, as soon as I start doing this, someone will discover that this man, his place is not here, he can do better for us.’

Maria also felt psychologically damaged by this sense of failure:

‘It’s difficult to accept it, [long pause] you look for job, it isn’t only for money you know, you want to, to - be independent and you want to present yourself. I am able to do something that’s my quality, part of my personality.’

The loss of confidence and self-esteem was often precipitated by the general experience of migration but was exacerbated and intensified by experiences of failing to get a (suitable) job:

‘If you have been working in your life how can you be happy about going to [benefits], it’s like begging for me. …And when you are in that situation you lose your confidence, you lose, you know, your assertiveness and you think would I be able one day again, you know and it’s a very, very huge society you think when will I be able to create my own space in that big society. It’s really hard. I can’t give up!’

Thus feelings of a loss of confidence not only played out in job seeking roles but, as Shahana revealed, for some refugees, a loss of professional status resulted in a general loss of confidence in oneself.

Disability We had two disabled people amongst our interviewees: Daddar had been injured by a landmine in his home country, and now undertook voluntary work but had not managed to obtain paid employment. Sabar ran a community organisation geared towards helping disabled refugees. He set up the organisation to support the large percentage of his community in Britain who are disabled and /or elderly. He felt strongly that disability constitutes a central issue in his community, highlighting for example that disabled refugees tend to be ‘poorer people so they are entitled to the disability [allowance] but they don’t know how to get it’. Consequently he had produced translated booklets and information leaflets about health and disability issues in the UK. He also acts as an advocate for people in his community who need medical care or treatment. Despite being disabled himself, Sabar reminds us that ‘even if you have a disability…you still got an ability,’ which he demonstrates by the highly successful work that he undertakes for his community.. He claimed ‘it doesn’t matter how much you are [physically] disabled it’s not going to, it’s not going to stop me for my education.’ Daddar also reinforced this point, highlighting that ‘when you become disabled it doesn’t mean that you cannot do anything’.

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However, these respondents also felt that many employers and the Job Centre mostly failed to realise this potential. Indeed, Daddar felt that disabled refugees encountered yet another additional layer of prejudice and discrimination when it came to seeking employment:

“Yeah, I think the way the job centre is dealing with disabled is quite different than to deal with normal people because they make discrimination between normal people and disabled people because when you become disabled it doesn’t mean that you cannot do anything”.

Sabar addressed this barrier by working within his own community and engaged in a large amount of voluntary work. However, he recognised the problems for other disabled refugees ‘because the physical jobs may be too difficult for them for the disabled to do it’. Daddar recounted how he really struggles to find work, commenting that he cannot even find illegal work because it is usually physical (‘…because for normal people they can get cash jobs straight away, but for disabled people it’s more complicated to get a job for cash or illegal way’). Daddar regarded office work as a potential avenue through which the impact of his disability might be minimised. Yet both respondents felt that they had to work twice as hard to prove themselves – both as refugees and as disabled people- in order to be considered on a par with other (non-disabled, non-refugee) applicants:

“They will definitely discriminate me because, because of my disability yes. One of my hands is not working, one of my legs is not working properly and I can’t use one of my eyes so they will definitely say to me what’s the point to give you a job, there are able people who are doing better than you…’ (Daddar) ‘They’ve got a lot of other jobs which is like office job, still they’ve got opportunity for the disabled and asylum seeker to enter but then the difficulty of the language, and the system- so some of them they come here, they come from the war and depression and the fight and genocide so when they come here, they need the time to prepare to complete their education, to enter the labour market so-’ (Sabar)

The experience of a disability could also increase. The respondents referred to this as ‘psychological problems’. For example Daddar described the pain of being ridiculed for the way he walked, due to his disability.

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8.5 Cross-Cutting Themes: Geographic and social isolation Feelings of geographic and social isolation impacted considerably on the refugees and asylum seekers in our study. Refugees described having been uprooted from their familiar locale, country and - in some cases - continent, and consequently encountered various difficulties in adjusting to a new and unfamiliar environment, with their families and familiar society left far away. Whilst the study was conducted in London, the themes discussed below in relation to experiencing social and geographic isolation, might obviously be assumed to be amplified even further for those refugees who are dispersed across the country.

Feeling ‘lost’ and ‘alone’ Many refugees expressed profound feelings of social isolation on arrival in Britain. These feelings were exacerbated by layers of additional, interconnecting factors.

‘[W]hen you come here, you are lost, you don’t know where you can start, how you can discipline yourself, how people can understand you, how to be a professional person…’ There are so many issues to deal with in terms of housing, health, employment, training, language, which seems to result in strong feelings of desperation (Fozia, from Sudan).

Feelings of loneliness were intensified by refugees’ separation from their previous familiar social support networks and their lack of access to new social networks in the UK. Various respondents described feeling isolated due to being unfamiliar with London and British society, which was compounded by the absence of friends and family to share these emotions and experiences with. Stewart’s (2003) research similarly found that a lack of family support, and a lack of professional and personal networks, rendered initial integration and adaptation difficult for refugee doctors seeking work (Stewart, 2003:12). Catrina for example, reveals how she came to Britain alone and had to be strong for herself:

‘Yes, I came on my own because - ........ it’s not easy because I didn’t have no parents, no family that could say, you know, just I was like alone just by myself so I have to find a way for myself and that’s how I came here.’

Feelings of social isolation were expressed particularly by female refugees (see also Sargeant et al, 1999), and although many male refugees shared these sentiments, they tended to frame issues of isolation in relation to their distress and frustration at not having access to information or knowledge about the system or society.

‘You feel lonely, you feel isolated, you don’t know all the support you can get so you need, you know, to be strong enough to do the research yourself ‘where can I get help?’, ‘where can I find this kind of information?’ It’s - basic but essential because when you stay in your hostel you just sleep and think, you know, ‘what will happen tomorrow?’, you don’t find any answer to that question. Who would I ask, you don’t have a relative here or a friend here, you are alone, you just ask to yourself, it’s just by chance you can get the information.’

You don’t know how to do it, you know, you don’t know the environment, you don’t know how to do with nobody, who will guide you what to do, there is no guidance here. Just you come and you - you will be in a street, you don’t know nothing.’ (Abdul, Iraq, emphasis added)

Abdul also conveyed his feelings of isolation in relation to his geographic location, - the unfamiliar ‘street’ where he is housed, and in terms of his disconnection from, and

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unfamiliarity with, the workings of this new society. Steven Rose, (HR officer from a local government organisation), also felt that geographical issues could hinder integration, suggesting that it can take generations before refugees are able to fully integrate into British society, especially for those living in geographically remote areas. He illustrates this describing an example from his own experience:

‘[T]hey kept within their own community to start with, it wasn’t just sort of one isolated family, it was like several families [one word] into one area so there was a sort of small community there but I think as time went on, not the original refugees that were there but the offspring of those refugees were the ones that integrated in”.

Integration through employment The European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) states that 'lack of access to the labour market during the reception phase seriously hinders integration in the long-term'. (ECRE, 1999:2) and Colic-Peisker (2003:17) further suggests that employment ‘seems to be the single most important aspect of successful resettlement and social inclusion in general’. As noted in the preceding extract, many employers talked about the need for refugees to ‘integrate’ into society and discussed the problems of isolation that arise (for both refugees and for wider society) from a lack of integration. Such views were reproduced among some of the employers, for example, Trevor Johnson, felt that employment constitutes a vitally important means for integrating refugees and explained his own belief that unemployment can lead to poverty, frustration and crime:

“You can’t let someone come across from a foreign country, even if they are lucky enough to bring their family with them, and leave them on benefit for 30 years with their children in a stinking tower block with no access to society. You are then growing a sense of frustration and isolation and that's of huge ambiguity and they are going to fight against it. I would, you know. […] [if] I saw a bloke walking outside and nick his briefcase and nick his watch, what would I care? But there is no link apparently between poverty and crime so I am told! Can I say bollocks on tape at this stage?’ (Trevor Johnson, Director of a recruitment agency).

Nia reinforced this view, from her perspective as a refugee, suggesting that unemployment can hinder social integration. She described how she had been in the country for many years now, and has been granted ILR, but stills feels like she is still ‘struggling’ to be integrated because she has not found employment:

‘I don’t feel integrated because I can’t work and as long as I don’t have something to do I don’t feel comfortable, that is part of my life.’

Social isolation also constituted a barrier to employment for those refugees who lacked any forms of social or community network – whereas even those with ‘weak’ social ties, such as distant relatives and acquaintances, were able to use them to facilitate employment opportunities through ‘networking’ (see Granovetter, 1973). As Bloch (2004) found in her research, refugees often find work through informal contacts, and many of those respondents in our study who were working (paid and voluntary) had achieved these positions through contacts within their community. (see Section 5.3). As Nia explained:

‘It’s about connection[s]…You know about jobs not only from the newspaper advertisement but you know, from friends, from family, relatives and if somebody can recommend you it’s more trustful and I can say you know, it works back home and it works here you know those who can get easily job are those who have connections, yes.’

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Promoting Social Integration Among individual refugee respondents, some were trying very hard to tackle their social isolation. For example, Shahana suggested that refugees could help themselves by 'being more proactive' and 'not being afraid to go into the society'. She felt that 'if you want something, you have to go into the society and mix'. She addressed this herself by developing new friendships, watching TV, and meeting social groups. However, a report from the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) (1999) highlights that responsibility should be placed upon individuals and receiving societies to facilitate integration:

‘From the point of view of the host society it requires a willingness to adapt public institutions to change the population profile, accept refugees as part of the national community, and take action to facilitate access to resources and decision making process’ (ECRE, 1999:1).

ECRE proposes a re-definition of integration, highlighting that integration is a dynamic and two-way process. Much of the research on refugees, and indeed the views of employers, which has taken a ‘human capital’ approach, however, has tended to locate the issues within refugees themselves, however, as the ECRE report emphasises, the onus for adaption might also usefully be placed on the receiving society and public institutions (see also Rosenkranz, 2002: 7). As our interviewees noted, employers can also play an important role in facilitating the process of integration. As Trevor Johnson emphasised, life is difficult without networks of friends and family, and he felt that the organisation can play a key role in helping to socially integrate refugees at work and make them feel welcome:

‘…I feel if you can go as far as developing real friendships in teams which is what we do here, it actually gives that family access into mainstream UK society and I suspect one of the hardest things, arriving as a refugee, is you don't know anybody, and therefore you don't access to the formal networks. Even something simple like moving house and someone has got an estate car and they can move your fridge for you…’

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8.6 Cross-Cutting Themes: Age Older refugees and asylum seekers felt in particular that their age constituted an additional barrier to employment. Frequent reference was made to ‘lost time’, and being too old to ‘start again’. For example, many mature refugees described feeling disillusioned and dismayed by the prospect of having to re-train or re-sit examinations and acquire additional new qualifications simply because their previous credentials were not recognised in the UK. For example, whilst being a qualified nurse, Catrina felt she had lost too much time and now could not bear the thought of starting back from the beginning in order to achieve her original aim of becoming a doctor (“I feel like my life was taken away, that’s what I felt sometimes”).

“And I was talking to one of the teachers and he said you have to start from the beginning from year one at university and I […] you know, I have to consider my age, I am 46 and if I have to study for four years and who would like to accept me as a newly qualified teacher at 50 years old?” (Maria, from former Yugoslavia).

Age interlinked with a range of other issues to position older refugees as less desirable workers:

“[Interviewer: Do you think that employers treat applications from refugees or asylum seekers differently to other people?] I think yes, totally yes, and that is what I am talking is not only my experience because I have got a lot of my friends, Iranian friends who are over qualified they do different jobs and they have had worse experience than what I have. Yes, they are treated differently totally yes. The other thing that I think you know because of my age, you know age is very important too. […] I had to start the university when I was about 28-29 years old and at the same time when I was in the university classes there was sitting there, all the students who were there they were very young. I was the oldest one when we graduated. It is in reality when you go into an interview, there are three or four young men sitting next to you they want to do the interview. I think it is obvious for an employer who, you know, who chooses the youngest one because you know he can get more off him than you. And I think this kind of thing, your colour, your accent, your age, are very important as well as your experience” (Abbas, from Iran).

Employers too recognised the importance of age and called for a legislative framework that would enable older refugees – who will not have the time to start over from scratch- to “become worthwhile members of the community”:

“Again, age is an issue for people, about what age group they are. Are they younger people who have got time to rebuild or are they older people that have lost everything? And let’s say they’re in their 50's, you’re taking away sort of retirement issues for them. And you’ve got to put something in there to say Ok we’re prepared to take these people in through our own sort of countries […] once they’re here what are you actually doing with them? Are you providing a social support to them or are you actually giving them something that says they can become a worthwhile member of the community?” (Steven Rose, HR manager for a large public sector organisation).

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8.7 Cross-Cutting Themes: Empowerment Notions of ‘empowerment’ are widely used in policy, practice and research circles, although often there is little consensus regarding definitions and conceptualisations of empowerment. Broadly speaking, notions of empowerment refer to the process of increasing some form of power, status or resource among less powerful groups, communities or individuals. However, views on the nature of this process (and subsequent judgements about whether it has been successful or not) will reflect the theoretical and epistemological standpoint of the perceiver and the ways in which power itself is conceptualised. For example, power might be regarded as a resource that can be unproblematically moved around or ‘given’ to people. Alternatively, empowerment may be envisaged as simply a matter of increasing an individual’s capacities. Furthermore, the creation of empowerment might be viewed as dependent upon actually changing key social inequalities and structural relations of power. The notion of empowerment is widely used within management discourse, and is often used in the context of ‘empowering employees’- which is framed as acknowledging the talents and contributions of employees and allowing them more input into decision making (MacDonald, 2004). This conceptualization however focuses on changing individuals to ‘fit’ the desires of organisations and does not aim to challenge wider, pre-existing relations of power (as might be expected, for example, within a social justice approach). McDonald argues that this discourse of empowerment is highly consonant with notions of enterprise culture (2004:925), which draws on discourses of individualization. Within such approaches, the value of ‘enterprise’ is applied not only to organizations, but to individual employees. Hence the ‘empowerment’ of individuals is popularly conceptualized as a task of increasing those attributes, values and behaviours among employees that are valued by more powerful groups/sectors in society (such as managers, organizations) and which are espoused within neo-liberalism (i.e. qualities such as initiative, self-reliance and the ability to accept responsibility for oneself and one’s actions, see du Gay et al.1996 and McDonald, 2004). Within neo-liberal discourse, the individual becomes an ‘entrepreneur of the self’ (Gordon 1987), who assumes responsibility for their own destiny. The self is rendered a project to be worked at, such that individuals must continuously strive ‘to make adequate provision for the preservation, reproduction and reconstruction of one’s own human capital’ (in McDonald, 2004:925). However, this emphasis - upon the responsibility of the individual – has been criticized for masking the role of social inequalities in producing and sustaining relations of disempowerment in society. Can refugees empower themselves? As outlined in Section Five, individuals adopted a range of strategic responses to the barriers they faced in accessing employment. In this sense, such actions might be regarded as an example of refugees trying to empower themselves. However, these responses often contained contradictory implications in terms of the extent to which individual refugees might be ‘empowered’. For example, gaining paid employment might be read in some respects as positively empowering - but if the person in question is under-employed, this may have negative (i.e. disempowering) effects on the individual’s mental health, self-esteem and financial status. Furthermore, as discussed previously, those refugees who worked within their own communities (e.g. Abbas as a youth worker in his local community organisation, Hamed as an advice worker helping other refugees) might be understood as feeling empowered with respect to deriving satisfaction, skills, qualifications and experiences (and for some, wages) from their work. Yet they might also be regarded as disempowered in wider terms, because they remained marginalised from the mainstream employment sector. Can employers empower refugees? Most of the employers who were interviewed did not currently employ refugees and asylum seekers, hence there were few examples of ‘good practice’ to draw on with regard to how employers may empower refugees. Those refugees and asylum seekers who felt

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empowered by their employment were overwhelmingly working within the refugee /community agency sector (as detailed further below). However, as discussed in Sections Five and Six, it was suggested that employers may be able to increase refugees’ likelihood of employment and improve their experiences once employed, by fostering a constructive, inclusive environment in which differences are respected and accommodated and in which refugee workers are provided with appropriate forms of support. It might also be suggested that in wider terms, refugees might be empowered if employers were to adopt measures such as advertising more widely, recognising other qualifications and experiences, taking cultural differences into account during recruitment and selection and making equalities issues a core priority within the organisation. Can refugee and community organisations and initiatives empower refugees? Individual refugees, and respondents from refugee and community agencies, identified a range of ways in which refugee and community organisations can help empower refugees with respect to employment. This included not only the provision of a range of specialist services, but also providing positive environments in which refugees are employed. Many refugees felt that refugee advice and guidance agencies provided empowerment at the level of personal self-confidence and reassurance. For example, agencies were described as being very supportive and alleviating a range of worries and frustrations for refugees. These organisations were also valued for providing training, education and skills. Often the advice and guidance that these organisations provided was experienced as personally empowering, as it enabled individuals to recognise and realise their existing potential. Indeed, this goal was reflected in the mission statements of some organisations. For example, Sara Melling from a refugee advice and guidance organisation explained:

‘[w]e do like to try and empower the client to do as much on their own possible. We don’t like to hold people’s hands necessarily, so when we do an action plan and some guidance we say what our limitations are that we can’t do everything for them you know, we try and teach them to go out and do things themselves, research the job market themselves.’

Likewise, Tara Hassan (a Business Advisor from a Minority Ethnic community organisation) described how she provides clients with materials but also helps them access information ‘for themselves’. Various organisations felt that a client centred approach provided a good means for empowering individuals, and the positive effects on personal self-confidence was noticeable among the sample of refugee respondents. However, as will be discussed further below, there may be limits on the extent to which such individualistic methods can be more widely empowering. Can Research empower refugees? It has been suggested that research can seek to empower its participants and the communities that it focuses on. For example, some researchers suggest that by ‘giving voice’ to participants from disadvantaged groups through research studies, the views and needs of less powerful groups can be conveyed to policy makers, practitioners and the wider public. However, research cannot guarantee that participants’ views will be subsequently listened to or taken account of. A tension also remains with regard to how far researchers speak ‘for’ their respondents (e.g. see Haw 1996). Indeed, the authorial power of the researcher can be potentially disempowering for participants, since they are rarely able to control exactly how they are represented in subsequent reports and papers. In one sense, it is inevitable that all research contains the threat of disempowerment since the power and responsibility for design, analysis and subsequent representation lies with the researcher/s, rather than participants (Archer 2002). In terms of actually taking part in a research project, participants may experience mixed emotions with regard to notions of personal empowerment. For example, whilst the process of expressing one’s views and having these recorded and listened to, might be a positive

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and rewarding experience, it is also possible that the process of remembering and recounting difficult, traumatic and unpleasant experiences may be distressing and upsetting. Power relations within the interview situation may also be mediated between researchers and participants- with factors such as ethnicity, gender, age, social class etc. all coming into play (see Archer 2002). Consequently, calls have been made for greater reflexivity among researchers to engage with and acknowledge their process power and responsibility (Griffin 1996). As Oliver (1990; 1992) argues, studies tend to empower or benefit the authors rather than participants, particularly since the results of a single study rarely directly improve the material circumstances of those who have taken part. Even within evidence-based policy making it has been noted that changes in policy and practice can take a long time to implement and may be ‘diluted down’ (e.g. see Davies 2003; Archer 2003). Re-Framing ‘Empowerment’ more broadly The above discussions of empowerment (with regard to individuals, employers, organisations and research) do not provide the ‘whole picture’ with respect to empowerment issues. In particular, there is a need to take account of the role played by wider social inequalities, which structure relations of power in people’s lives and have the potential to constrain (or facilitate) interventions aimed at empowering refugees and asylum seekers. As noted in this report, refugees and asylum seekers were severely disempowered by the prevalence of negative, racist media representations of refugees and asylum seekers. These discourses not only impacted negatively on the self-esteem and everyday interactions and experiences of individuals, but also had tangible effects on their chances of accessing employment. These negative representations were not only symbolically disempowering (e.g. as dominant narrow stereotypical representations close down the opportunities for refugees to present themselves as complex and valuable human beings) but were also materially disempowering. It might also be argued that the racist discourses identified in Section Eight operated in similar ways. As also discussed in Section Five, refugees and asylum seekers reported finding the struggle to access employment, and the process of waiting to hear about asylum applications, highly disempowering. In particular, the sections on mental health and isolation revealed participants’ experiences of extreme frustration and anguish during such times, and their feelings of acute powerlessness.

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SECTION EIGHT: IMPLICATIONS, CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS 8.1 General Discussion and Conclusions

‘[…] We are human being, we should look after each other, we shouldn’t always be you know, sort of, some sort of ignored and to be un-polite to each other you know. We are human beings, we have to think about children, we have to think about the people who are in hunger, the people in Africa, we have to think about the people in Ethiopia and in the poor countries who haven’t got any food, who haven’t got anything, who haven’t got no life, no education, nothing, we shouldn’t just think about our own selves, I think we should give each other a chance you know. It doesn’t mean because my family is poor, they are not human beings - they are just the same human as everybody so why they should be treated in different way? Why they shouldn’t have the rights like everybody else? Maybe for some people life is very easy, maybe they live in a normal way, maybe they will have millions of pounds, maybe they will have a hundred cars, a hundred shops, a hundred hotels, anything they like, maybe life is very simple for them. But for some people like me who have been tortured, who have made a lot of sacrifice and for example my brother has been killed by the war. My mum has been killed by bombs. My elder relatives like my cousins has been killed in the bombs. And where I have left just a few brothers and sisters and they are living in a very poor condition and just because they are far away from, they are far away from this country doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t have the right to live, it doesn’t mean that they have to be tortured all the time you know.’ (Daddar, from Iraq).

In common with the national picture, all refugees in this study recounted severe difficulties in accessing employment in the UK. Barriers to employment were complex and multiple – with clusters of factors combining to exclude refugees from accessing employment, particularly from forms of paid work that were appropriate to their skills, interests and experiences. These factors spanned personal, social, economic, cultural and structural issues and reflected not only the problems or situations of individual refugees, but also biases and shortcomings on the part of employers, state organisations, local and national policy and wider society. Indeed, current levels of racism and prejudice directed against refugees may be reflective of both negative media coverage and the hard line turn in UK policy (see Schuster & Solomos 2004) in relation to refugees. The refugees we interviewed were making enormous efforts to try and improve their situations- they were re-training and re-taking qualifications and trying to improve their language skills. Many were undertaking considerable amounts of voluntary work and were expending an enormous amount of psychic energy trying to deal with their difficult current situations. They were far from the needy dependents or the ‘scroungers’ portrayed in the popular press. However, they were repeatedly blocked where employers did not recognise the skills, qualifications and experiences that they had gained in their previous countries. They were also often contending with a complex mixture of personal, social and economic issues, which placed them at a disadvantaged starting position within the UK labour market, and for which they would benefit from increased assistance and interventions. Employers felt generally uninformed with regard to employing refugees and asylum seekers – even where they had been working with refugee organisations and/or accepting refugees on work placement schemes. Drawing on the experiences of refugees, employers and specialist refugee agencies, it is suggested that where organisations are resistant to employing refugees (and to engaging in strategies that might increase the employment of refugees), such views tend to be justified through appeals to a lack of appropriate resources and/or to deficits on the part of refugees (e.g. refugees as inappropriately qualified and/or

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not ‘fitting’ the organisation). Such views, we suggest, can be understood as reflective of wider negative discourses in society concerning refugees. It appeared that refugees and asylum seekers do not ‘fit’ well within (and hence are not well served by) existing equalities policies. Current approaches (especially to religious diversity) may also benefit from revision in order to tackle pressing issues in the recruitment and promotion of refugees. Race, ethnicity, racisms and religious discrimination intertwined to disadvantage refugees and asylum seekers in distinctive ways. Contemporary forms of racism, which focus on notions of cultural and religious ‘difference’, work in subtle yet powerful ways to position refugees as ‘undesirable’ employees. There appears to be considerable scope for engaging in further work to help tackle popular myths and misconceptions among employers about refugee employees (e.g. regarding the resources needed, the needs of different religious and ethnic groups, the potential mental health of refugees) and to emphasise the benefits arising from a diverse workforce and the potential assets brought by refugee employees in particular. A range of positive steps were being made by refugee agencies and community organisations. Holistic models enabled efforts to be targeted at three key levels: advice, training and support for individual refugees; working with, and supporting, employers; and lobbying/ informing policy. Where agencies also focused specifically on job brokerage, this also seemed to increase success rates for placing refugees in employment. The provision of tailored job search support (for specific professions) also seemed to be beneficial for refugees seeking employment in these sectors. Partnership working (between refugee/ community agencies and wider organisations) also emerged as a highly practical, useful and valuable way for supporting refugees into employment, particularly where these partnerships spanned sectors (e.g. health, housing, employment) and were conducted within a spirit of collaboration (as opposed, for example to consultation). Partnerships may also enable diverse agencies to work together to avoid duplication of services and to provide a stronger base for lobbying. Work placement schemes appeared to offer a range of potential benefits to refugees and employers, but evidence suggested that the success of these schemes may also depend on the provision of sufficient levels of support to both refugees and employers, and an appropriate level of commitment and resourcing from employers (e.g. in terms of the time and support provided to placees). It was suggested that longer placements (over 3 months) may be particularly beneficial.

8.2 RECOMMENDATIONS & IMPLICATIONS 8.2i Recommendations and Implications for organisations working with refugees and asylum seekers (a) Refugee agencies that work with employers may find it useful to consider whether

their employer contacts in partner organisations feel adequately informed, knowledgeable and confident about issues concerning the employment of refugees and asylum seekers. Where appropriate, it may be beneficial to develop additional, ongoing measures to address this issue.

(b) Organisations accepting work placements might be monitored to assess whether the placements are increasing the proportion of refugees employed by an organisation. Where overall levels do not increase over time, the issues might usefully be raised with organisations to assess what additional support might be appropriate. For example, this study found an example of an employing organisation that seemed to think that refugees were not legally allowed to undertake paid work (only unpaid work

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experience). In such cases, the provision (and/or wider dissemination) of additional information and messages within organisations may be appropriate.

(c) Consideration might be given to the minimum acceptable length of a work placement in order to maximise the chances of a successful placement for both organisation and individual. One suggestion made by respondents was for a placement to last for a minimum of three days a week for at least 3 months.

(d) Where agencies engage with public sector as well as private sector employers, this can help to open further pathways into employment for refugees.

(e) Close collaboration between refugee agencies through partnership working and networking can help to avoid duplication in service delivery and can strengthen organisations’ capacity for lobbying policy makers. Where organisations work in partnerships, consideration might be given to whether there is scope for broadening the range of organisations included in the partnership (e.g. to unions, other sectors/agencies).

(f) The use of holistic models of working (focusing on refugees, employers and policy makers) may be particularly effective.

(g) The use of tailored job search and tailored job brokerage services appear to be useful and effective means for helping refugees into appropriate employment. Where tailored provision is only available for certain professions, consideration might be given to how the range of services might be expanded (e.g. through partnership with other providers, employers and professional/ statutory bodies).

8.2ii Recommendations and Implications for Employers (h) The employment of refugees is facilitated where social justice concerns (as opposed

to the ‘business case’) are prioritised within an organisation. For example, where equality issues and the importance of respecting difference are encapsulated in organisational missions and policies, there may be a positive impact on recruitment and selection practices.

(i) Recruitment policies might be usefully regularly reviewed to ensure that applications are solicited from a wide range of potential applicants. Where employers regard it as their responsibility to advertise posts widely, minority groups are more likely to apply for posts. Organisations may find engaging the help of specialist recruitment agencies beneficial for ensuring a diverse field of applicants, particularly for more senior posts.

(j) Integration of refugees into the workforce should be treated as a two-way, dynamic process that requires commitment and effort from both sides.

(k) Integration and adjustment of refugee employees is promoted where employers encourage inclusive work-place cultures and where refugees are supported to develop new social networks.

(l) Managers with responsibility for equality and diversity issues may find it useful to reflect on whether there is a need to address stereotypes about refugees within an organisation. (e.g. challenging the assumption that refugees are less capable of doing the job and explaining how the experiences refugees have been through can be enlightening, and hence of benefit for the organisation).

(m) Pro-active and on-going/continuous approaches to staff needs (e.g. regular surveys of employees’ needs and continuous assessment and monitoring of institutional cultures) can enable an organisation to adapt and respond rapidly to an ever-changing workforce.

(n) Organisations might usefully review the extent to which they are able to recognise qualifications, expertise, training and references gained overseas. Working in partnership with refugee and community organisations may prove fruitful in this respect.

(o) Considerable benefits might be derived from review of existing equalities and diversity policies, to ensure that policies address the needs of refugees and asylum seekers (see (t) and (u), below). Where organisations are able to commit to

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monitoring and using data relating to the recruitment, retention and progression of ethnic and religious groups, it is likely that substantial advances might be made.

8.2iii Recommendations and Implications for Policy-Makers (p) There appears to be an urgent need for more ‘joined up’ equalities policies. Currently

refugees and asylum seekers are either subsumed within general policies (in which they remain mostly a hidden, unaddressed group) or are excluded from others, such as key equalities legislation e.g. the RRAA. Consideration might usefully be given to whether there is a need to sharpen up, and/or revise existing policies to ensure that ‘new’ groups, such as refugees, are accommodated within them.

(q) There appears to be an opportunity with respect to addressing key skills shortage areas through revision and improvement of processes of recognition and validation of refugees’ existing skills and experiences. Certainly this study found examples of skilled teachers and engineers being unable to find work. This would seem to constitute a chronic waste, and hence a potential area for priority action. Consultation with a range of stakeholders may provide a useful starting point.

(r) It is recommended that where policies relating to the employment of refugees (or indeed other minority groups) are predominantly framed in terms of a business or economic rationale, important consideration might be given to also emphasising the social justice imperative for engaging in work.

(s) There appears to be scope for improved liaison between job centres and refugee organisations. Job centres may also benefit from additional interventions to help challenge the continued under-employment of refugees.

(t) Existing religious diversity policies and practices may benefit from re-consideration and revision. Where multicultural approaches predominate, attention might usefully be given to wider, structural concerns such as differential pay gaps, rates of recruitment/ retention, and racist practices and cultures.

(u) Ethnic monitoring practices might be usefully extended to cover religious minorities and refugees and asylum seekers. Organisations might then be encouraged to develop and implement appropriate action plans on the basis of findings.

(v) Reversing current ‘permission to work’ restrictions would be likely to have an immediate, positive impact on asylum seekers and may assist their integration into British society.

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