Personnel Today’s Refugees in Employment campaign was applauded at the
conference, for putting pressure on the Government to remove the barriers
facing refugees when seeking work in the UK.
Ram Gidoomal, entrepreneur, author and trustee of Employability Forum,
supports Personnel Today’s call to set up a skills and qualifications database
for asylum-seekers entering the country.
He said: "All too often asylum-seekers’ skills are buried on arrival in
the UK and fail to re-appear. There is a linguistic, financial and visibility
trap, where highly qualified immigrants end up working in restaurants."
Gidoomal also called for more research on, and tracking of, refugees and
economic migrants once they enter the jobs market. "It is needed so we can
better understand the impact of migration on the economy, and demonstrate the
benefits to business," he said.
The Government needs to help employer understanding of asylum-seeker and
refugee categorisation and how it affects their eligibility to work, Gidoomal
added.
