Skilled migrants and their families face the prospect of not being socially integrated into the local labour market and the community more generally, according to new research.
This follows a recent study funded by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), which investigated the settlement experience of skilled migrants and their spouses, predominantly women, who arrive in Australia with skills, qualifications and experience.
The report, Skilled migrant women in regional Australia: Promoting social inclusion through VET, considers how vocational education and training can assist in achieving ‘social inclusion’ for skilled migrant families. The study centred on the Greater Shepparton region in Victoria, an area that has seen an expanding number of migrants settling from new and emerging communities in Australia.
“The research asks us to consider skilled migration from the perspective of the family unit, as spouses are often well-qualified, highly skilled professionals with much to offer.
“In many ways we need to apply the support that humanitarian migrants get to the skilled migration program,” said Sue Fergusson, NCVER’s General Manager Research.
Ms Fergusson said settlement is compounded in regional areas with limited labour markets and few strategies in place to support transition for skilled migrants.
“VET institutions can assist the spouses of skilled migrants by explaining and offering recognition of prior learning and providing advice on how educational opportunities relate to jobs in the Australian context,” she said.
Principal author Professor Sue Webb, Monash University, said the research did find some good practices in the university sector that enhanced individual migrants’ employability skills.
“They involved support in relation to job seeking, local work experience, volunteering and an understanding of specific professional networks and labour markets.
“Skilled migrants are very adept at developing their capabilities and building new networks to gain work and integrate. Organisations would do well to recognise and build on such resourcefulness.
“In the TAFE sector, a strategy of encouraging skilled migrants to participate in organised volunteer programs developed for humanitarian migrants, also facilitated the transition of some skilled migrants into a new field of professional employment in human services and development,” said Professor Webb.
Copies of Skilled migrant women in regional Australia: Promoting social inclusion through VET, authored by Sue Webb, Denise Beale and Miriam Faine, is available from: www.ncver.edu.au/publications/2653.html
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