20,000 people are expected to be granted refugee status in Australia this year and many will be highly skilled, but finding work in their chosen profession may be a struggle. Advocates say the current process of recognising overseas qualifications isn't working and can leave refugees and asylum seekers without meaningful work.
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TVTranscript
00:00 This is from my clinic in Syria. Only this one I have from my clinic.
00:07 These are Akram Adesha's most treasured possessions and a painful reminder of the life he left
00:14 behind.
00:15 Very, very sad. I feel very sad because I worked for this for many years.
00:21 The GP ran a clinic in north-eastern Syria for more than two decades until the arrival
00:26 of ISIS forced his family to seek refuge in Australia.
00:31 But the 62-year-old can't practice here and is employed as a part-time NDIS support worker
00:37 while he works towards local medical accreditation, a process which could take years.
00:43 It's difficult for me because I worked for many years as a doctor.
00:48 It's not a new problem, highly skilled refugees working in menial jobs, but advocates say
00:53 there's been very little progress on the issue.
00:56 We've all heard the stories of the brain surgeons driving taxis and we actually see that quite
01:01 a lot. So yeah, it is a serious problem.
01:04 Yemeni refugee Mohamed Hassan arrived in Australia with international qualifications in civil
01:10 engineering but was initially rejected by employers who wanted local experience.
01:16 I've been trying for almost six months to find any engineering job by accreditation.
01:25 Mohamed eventually won a place in a Victorian Government engineering cadetship program for
01:29 refugees.
01:31 There was a whole group of talent out there. They had the skills, they had the abilities,
01:35 they wanted to work and we just needed to create that bridge to get them into the jobs.
01:40 Advocates want more industry-specific programs, targeting highly skilled refugees and asylum
01:46 seekers who are already here. They say current processes can be complex, time-consuming and
01:52 expensive, with an element of gatekeeping by some industry bodies.
01:56 When you have an industry that's regulating entry into that and there's no oversight of
02:01 what that entry requirements look like, you can come up with all sorts of reasons to keep
02:06 people out.
02:10 The Federal Government did not respond to the ABC's questions about how accreditation processes
02:15 can be improved.
02:16 [BLANK_AUDIO]