Employing refugees
Refugees could help to ease the UK's skills shortages, but the government's desire to appear tough on asylum, coupled with negative media coverage of asylum seekers, has created a difficult climate for refugees and for organisations that try to get them into work. Kate Godwin looks at some of the barriers to refugee employment and what can be done to ensure that UK employers can take advantage of the skills and experience offered by refugees.
Media stereotypes and political posturing have resulted in most of the population believing that large numbers of asylum seekers are putting a drain on the UK taxpayer (see box 1 and box 2). In fact, Home Office figures for 2000 show that immigrants contribute around £2.5 billion more in taxes than they consume in benefits1.
This means that if there were no foreign-born people in the UK, then taxes would have to rise, or expenditure would have to be cut back, by £2.6 billion.
Refugees bring with them skills and experience that both public sector and private sector employers could use to solve their widely reported skills shortages.
Various research studies show that refugees possess a high level of education, qualifications and skills. Many refugees are qualified in professions and trades in which the UK is currently experiencing skill shortages - the health service, for example. Yet the national average for refugee unemployment is around 36% - far higher than for the indigenous population and difficult to reconcile with the levels of skills, qualifications and motivation that refugees have to offer. Where refugees are employed, it is often at levels far below their capabilities or education.
A limited self-assessment study of 400 refugees by the Department for Work and Pensions showed that 56% of over-18s had a qualification and 23% had a degree or higher2. Another survey of more than 500 refugees and asylum seekers in Warwickshire and Coventry found that over half were graduates, professionally qualified or in possession of vocational qualifications equivalent to National Vocational Qualification levels four to five, but 80% were jobless3.
Accurate data about refugees locally and nationally is sparse and there is little robust quantitative evidence on the skills and qualifications of refugees. This is chiefly because occupation has never been part of the asylum application process; whether someone is a surgeon or an agricultural worker is irrelevant to his or her claim. As a result, there is no comprehensive information on refugees' occupation, training, level of education, or ability in the English language. This lack of data also makes it more difficult to formulate public policy, and for some years refugee organisations and employers have urged the government to create a skills database for refugees.
The NHS is one employer that relies heavily on foreign labour. According to the Greater London Authority, 23% of doctors and 47% of nurses working within the NHS were born outside the UK. Faced with the imminent mass retirement of the generation of Asian doctors who came to the UK in the 1960s and 1970s, the NHS is aware of the potential offered by refugee health professionals. A recent Department of Health report states: "We do not have reliable figures for the number of refugee health professionals in the UK and estimates vary. However, they are a cost-effective source of staff for the NHS. The cost of re-training or integrating a trained refugee health professional into the NHS is significantly lower than the cost of training UK nationals."4
During 2001/02, a Department of Health steering group allocated £1 million to 23 projects providing a variety of services for refugee health professionals. However, asylum seekers who are awaiting or appealing a Home Office decision are not eligible for training. This can be extremely frustrating for those who may have been awaiting a decision for a year or more. Because of the length of time they may have spent in the UK they may speak better English and know more about the NHS than many refugees on the training courses.
The British Medical Association (BMA), British Dental Association (BDA) and the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) have established databases to identify the numbers and locations of refugee health professionals who have the right to work. In December 2003, there were 920 doctors registered on the BMA database, 90 dentists on the BDA list and 157 refugee nurses registered with the RCN.
Looking in more detail at the RCN database, there were 110 females and 45 males; two gave no response. There were 109 nurses, six midwives, 36 trained as both nurse and midwife, and six gave no response. Some 73 have been in the UK for between one and three years and 38 for three to five years. Most (76) are based in London, with 44 in the West Midlands and the remainder dispersed around the UK. The majority come from the Congo, Iran, Somalia and Afghanistan. Some 78% said they worked as a nurse in their country of origin. Of those reporting they have permission to work in the UK, more than half are unemployed.
While the health service is alive to the potential offered by refugees, other employers are more wary, despite the fact that granting an individual refugee status should put an end to any argument over whether they are entitled to stay and work in the UK. Patrick Wintour, director of Employability Forum, an organisation that promotes the skills and experience of refugees in the UK, says: "There is no cause that the business community is more reluctant to embrace than this one. Business takes the view that to have a relationship with refugees will be damaging to its relations with its customers and shareholders. The corporate social responsibility agenda has failed in this area."
Obstacles to work
While refugees may have skills to offer employers, they face enormous practical difficulties in gaining work in the UK. Reasons for this include:
delays in obtaining a national insurance number;
difficulties in securing a reference;
they may have been advanced in their careers, but need to undertake training that will allow them to work in the UK;
their training may have been interrupted;
they may be under pressure to take alternative employment under New Deal rules;
they may have difficulty accessing appropriate information;
they may not speak English well, if at all;
they may have no contact with family members or other support networks; and
they face real public prejudice.
These difficulties are in addition to the trauma they may have experienced in their personal lives and which led them to seek refuge in the UK.
Volunteering
Asylum seekers who wait a long time for a decision on whether they can stay in this country are in limbo and they can end up spending a long time out of the labour market. Denying people training and work opportunities compounds their social exclusion. Working as a volunteer gives people the chance to use or learn job skills and become familiar with UK working practices - often while improving their English. And volunteering offers employers a chance to meet skill shortages at a minimal cost, without committing to a more permanent arrangement before they are sure an individual is suitable.
Employers may be reluctant to offer asylum seekers unpaid opportunities as volunteers because asylum seekers may be notified that they must not engage in paid or unpaid work. However, the National Centre for Volunteering has sought written clarification from the Home Office on this point and they have been advised that "no paid or unpaid work" does not relate to volunteering. As long as the activity does not amount to employment or job substitution, asylum seekers are entitled to receive out-of-pocket expenses like any other volunteer. This example illustrates the lack of clear guidance on policies towards asylum seekers and refugees.
English skills
Employers, understandably, want potential recruits to have appropriate English language skills. Research carried out by Goldsmiths College in London found that some 83% of refugees arrived with poor or no spoken English. Unsurprisingly, some 48% of the refugees interviewed by Goldsmiths cited English language skills as a barrier to employment5.
Research conducted for the Home Office found that the shortage of classes and long waiting lists was the main barrier to refugees wanting to access English classes6. For example, in the London borough of Newham, the waiting list was running at over 1,000 at the time of the research.
The provision of free English classes around the UK is uneven, with some people having to be in the country for three years before becoming eligible; and the hours they spend learning English may be legally restricted. Currently projects supporting asylum seekers are not eligible for monies from the Home Office Challenge Fund, whereas those supporting refugees are.
While it is understandable that the government is reluctant to fund projects for people who may not remain in the UK, the fact of the matter is that people may spend a long time waiting for a decision on their refugee status. To deny them access to English tuition can only slow down their integration into UK society. Research shows that a good command of the English language is the primary determinant of how well someone from overseas integrates into the UK. This shortage of language programmes is in spite of a government proposal to make fluency in English a condition of gaining citizenship.
The report of the Life in the UK Advisory Group, which was established by the Home Office, says of the three-year residency rule: "We recommend… the speedy abolition of this rule in England. The three-year wait to qualify for free courses serves no purpose except as a short term economy measure and indeed it runs counter to government policies on diversity and the integration of minorities."7
The UK approach to English teaching for new arrivals contrasts with that of other countries. Canada has targeted programmes for immigrants with a strong emphasis on learning the language and in Australia immigrants are entitled to 1,000 hours of tuition. In Scotland, the situation of not funding courses for asylum seekers has been challenged and eligibility for English tuition has been widened to include asylum seekers awaiting a decision on their asylum applications.
Travel West Midlands, a bus company, devised their own English classes for prospective trainees after obtaining funding from the Learning and Skills Council (see box 3). "English language skills and an ability to communicate with customers are prerequisites for the job," says Pete Bond, project officer at the bus company. The English classes offered on the four-month long pre-employment course were firmly job related, with an emphasis on how to deal with customers, bus industry terms and local knowledge.
Bond says that while the English teaching on offer to refugees at further education colleges is fine for imparting general language skills, most employers have particular terms and procedures that their staff need to be familiar with. He believes that training needs to be employer-led through classes in the workplace, though support is needed from other agencies. This is backed up by the Home Office research mentioned above, which found that the level of English on most courses is too low to provide any real help for refugees trying to gain entry to the UK labour market.
Bond also believes that training programmes, such as the one run by his company, need some financial subsidy. "It's difficult to live on benefits for an extended period, and refugees are usually under pressure to send money home. We find that people will take a lower-paid job so they can start earning, rather than complete a training programme that will defer them receiving an income. That's even though they would earn more in the long run by doing our pre-employment training course," he says.
This also highlights a problem faced by some employers who have taken on refugee workers. People with high qualifications may initially take manual jobs because of poor English. However, once their English improves and other opportunities become available, they move on.
Government policy
The Employability Forum believes that it has been difficult to maintain many initiatives around refugees because of a lack of any consistent, sustained policy by the government on their treatment.
The Refugee Council has stated that the ongoing work of assisting refugees to integrate into UK life is becoming overshadowed by the running of the asylum system and the high political and media profile it attracts.
Rather than point out some of the facts about asylum seekers and refugees and the contribution that refugees and migrants make to society, the government has preferred to talk tough and to come down hard on individual asylum seekers.
The current Home Secretary, David Blunkett, has said that tackling public concerns around immigration is crucial to Labour's chances of staying in office8.
This focus on deterring asylum seekers has seen the government adopt a more punitive philosophy. While this has had little effect in reducing the number of asylum applications, it has had a detrimental effect on individual asylum seekers and on community relations.
Many of those who work with refugees argue that the government's wish to not appear a 'soft touch' on asylum has fuelled public prejudice. The government's conflation of asylum seekers and economic migrants might also affect how refugee workers are welcomed into workforce by indigenous workers.
The government is committed to speeding up the asylum decision-making process, but in the past it was not unheard of for individuals to wait as long as seven years for a decision on whether they could stay in the country.
The extent of the delays faced by asylum seekers is illustrated by the government announcement on 24 October 2003 that those who had suffered from what it termed "historical delays in the system" would be considered for permission to live and work here. The government said this applied to up to 15,000 families and that some families would have children who had been in the UK for seven years. The press release was headed: "Tough new asylum measures" and talked about "the tremendous progress made in halving the number of asylum seekers entering Britain".
This was followed on 27 October 2003 by the government announcing a "crackdown on abuse of the asylum appeals system". It is proposed to axe the High Court's powers to scrutinise asylum decisions by judicial review and to bar claims under the Human Rights Act in such cases. A planned immigration and asylum tribunal will have the final say in immigration cases. Its decisions will not be subject to review by the High Court, Court of Appeal or House of Lords. This is in spite of the fact that as many as one in four appeals was successful in 2002, according to the Home Office.
The cumulative impact of several major pieces of legislation on asylum and immigration in the past decade has been to restrict applicants' access to the benefits system, streamline appeals and tighten restrictions on the right to paid employment.
Employer anxiety
There may also have been other unintended consequences, including a heightened reluctance on the part of many employers to recruit refugees as a result of the introduction of section 8 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1996. Section 8, which was opposed by the Confederation of British Industry and the Trades Union Congress at the consultation stage, puts the onus on employers to investigate applicants' eligibility for employment in the UK or face the prospect of significant fines. Expecting employers to police immigration legislation in this way has made some wary of employing refugees for fear that they might fall foul of the law. Recent announcements of a Home Office crackdown on illegal working have added to employers' concerns.
Compliance with the law is not helped by the fact that many refugees do not have passports, birth certificates or the usual set of documentation possessed by most European Union nationals, such as national insurance numbers. They may also lack corroborative paperwork to verify their professional or academic qualifications and experience. Those wishing to work with children or in sensitive occupations also face the problem of having their background checked - something that may not be possible if, for example, they have fled a war zone.
The paper documents that refugees currently receive from the Home Office can quickly become tatty and are easily forged. Most employers are also unfamiliar with these documents, making them reluctant to employ refugees, even though they have permission to work.
Research carried out by the Institute of Employment Studies for the Employability Forum has found that the complexity of procedures and the lack of clarity about correct documentation make employers worried that they will inadvertently take on someone who is not allowed to work9.
Wintour observes that such anxieties explain why employers may be unwilling to publicise their involvement with refugees: "There is a concern that they might be doing something wrong with regard to documentation. And their best intentions could be turned into a very negative story by the media."
Asylum seekers are currently issued with an asylum registration card that carries biometric information - fingerprints and a photograph. These cards state that employment is prohibited. If an individual is granted refugee status and permission to work, the card is withdrawn. The Employability Forum believes that once an asylum seeker is given permission to stay they should be issued with a similar card that states that employment is allowed. "This means that employers would not be in doubt as to someone's eligibility for work," says Wintour, "and it would be much cheaper and easier than introducing ID cards for 60 million people".
Some employers are prepared to consider refugees for employment. Kurshid Alam, group personnel manager at the single homeless charity St Mungo's, points out that refugees bring skills and experience that can benefit organisations (see box 4). Offering work opportunities to refugees fits with St Mungo's ethos of helping disadvantaged groups, but altruism was not the chief driver. "We had great difficulty finding people with the right skills and commitment, so employing refugees benefited us as well as the individuals concerned," he says.
Wintour wants to put the issue of refugees in the labour market onto the mainstream diversity agenda. "In the past there has been a tendency to see a separation between settled communities and new arrivals," he says. "We want to stop refugees being seen as some sort of marginal group that is different from other ethnic minorities."
Positive moves
The publication towards the end of last year by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) of Working to Rebuild Lives; a preliminary report towards a refugee employment strategy10 was welcomed by those working with refugees. It stated that employment support for refugees is an important part of the government's national refugee integration agenda and is the first stage towards the production in spring 2004 of an employment strategy to increase the numbers of refugees in jobs.
"This is a significant achievement," says Wintour, "and I'm encouraged by the department saying it wants to see further progress made".
The report identifies Jobcentre Plus as having a key role in providing refugees with the kind of support that helps them with settlement and language, as well as advice about the UK labour market and employment opportunities.
Speaking at a conference organised by the Employability Forum in November last year, Trish Newton, deputy head of Jobseekers Division, said that Jobcentre Plus is seeking to improve the services it offers to refugees. Jobcentres are not used to having professionals as clients, and a refugee doctor or teacher is probably better served by a voluntary sector organisation that has developed expertise. Jobcentre Plus is currently considering establishing a refugee steering group to make strategic policy decisions and establish links with community and voluntary sector groups that have experience of working with refugees.
Jobcentre Plus plans to undertake ethnic minority outreach initiatives and will engage diversity managers to work with large employers to help them recruit refugees. This represents something of a strategic shift for the service, which has traditionally not gone out and looked for clients; instead, people came through the door for benefits.
It is hoped that such initiatives will see an end to the pressure reported by some refugees on medical training courses11. Under New Deal rules, some Jobcentres have pressured refugees in training for the NHS to take other employment. Some medical training projects have been forced to overcome this difficulty by running courses in the evenings or at weekends, raising other problems such as childcare.
Pete Bond, who established a pre-employment course for bus drivers at Travel West Midland, would certainly welcome a more flexible and open attitude from government agencies. He found that much of his time was spent trying to engage practical support from other organisations. "Our initiative was welcomed by lots of agencies, but it wasn't so easy to find those who were actually willing to push change along," says Bond. "Government agencies in particular need to play their part, and they're the most difficult to get on board. I had many arguments with government agencies, but refused to take 'no' for an answer and went higher up the management chain. I had to be persistent."
As an example of where a more flexible and creative approach is needed, Bond cites driving licences, which are obviously essential for anyone who wants to be employed as a driver. Currently, driving licences are excluded from the variety of qualifications eligible for financial support. Bond estimates that no more than 10-15% of refugees have a UK driving licence. If the transport industry is to recruit refugees, then people need assistance with getting a UK licence and coping with the Highway Code. He also points out that individuals who may have driven in their home country will need lessons to cope with inner city driving. "The driving conditions here are very different. Back home they may have just driven down farm tracks."
What needs to happen?
Wintour says that one of the government's priorities should be to ensure that good, legally defensible decisions on individual asylum claims are made within a short time of arriving in the country. Those who have a legitimate claim to remain should be processed quickly so they spend as short a time as possible out of work, and can secure employment and use their skills to benefit both themselves and the UK.
Systems need to be in place that make entry to the labour market easier. This requires more effective signposting of services that refugees might need to access, quicker issuing of national insurance numbers and an assessment of refugees skills and experience. Jobcentre staff in areas with a concentration of refugee communities need to be more aware of the needs of this disadvantaged group. Currently, there is no uniform approach to dealing with refugees and there is no guarantee that all refugees will receive advice on how to convert their existing qualifications or re-qualify in this country.
The Employability Forum would like to see a settlement education programme that would help refugees move through a staged progression, from arrival in this country to employability through appropriate tuition and advice. And employers need to look at refugees with a more open mind. As Wintour points out: "This would ensure that today's refugees can contribute to the UK economy just as generations of refugees before them have done."
1 The Migrant Population in the UK: fiscal effects, 2002, available at: www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/.
2 Refugees' opportunities and barriers in employment and training, DWP research report series (no. 179), available at: www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5.
3 Times Higher Education Supplement, 30/5/03.
4 Integrating refugee professionals into the NHS: A report of the Department of Health Steering Group, available at: www.doh.gov.uk/.
5 See note 2.
6 English language training for refugees in London and the regions, available at: www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds.
7 The New and the Old: The Report of the Life in the UK Advisory Group, available at: www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/.
8 The Observer, 14/12/03.
9 IES research will be published in February 2004.
10 Working to Rebuild Lives; a preliminary report towards a refugee employment strategy, available at: www.dwp.gov.uk/.
11 See note 4.
|
The public believes the UK hosts about 23% of the world's refugees; the real figure is 1.98%. In terms of per capita asylum applications, the UK ranked sixth out of 15 EU countries in 2002, with 1.8 applicants for every 1,000 people. Austria was first with 4.6 applicants. In 2001, Canada granted protection to 97% of Afghan asylum applicants; the UK allowed 19% of Afghan applicants. There is no such thing as an "illegal asylum seeker" - anyone has the right to apply for asylum in the UK and remain until a final decision on their asylum application has been made. Many asylum seekers have their applications refused purely on procedural grounds. Many are unable to complete the Statement of Evidence Form in which they must outline, in English, their reasons for seeking asylum within 10 days. In 2001, 21,220 applications were refused on non-compliance grounds - in other words, for reasons that have nothing to do with the substance or credibility of the claim. The amount of benefit a single asylum seeker receives each week is £37.77. Immigrants make a net contribution to the UK economy of about£2.6 billion. Immigrants tend to be bigger and more independent earners than their British counterparts. They earn 12% more per capita than native residents,and more immigrants are self-employed. Some 15% of immigrants are professionals, compared with 11% of residents born in Britain. A MORI survey for Stonewall in July 2003 revealed that asylum seekers, refugees and Roma face the most prejudice in the UK: more than one-third of respondents admitted negative feelings towards those groups. Sources: Home Office, Praxis and the Refugee
Council. |
|
Travel West Midlands, a bus company with around 5,000 staff, has recruited three drivers from the refugee community and has another eight individuals undergoing driver training. Employers are often worried that refugees might meet with a hostile reception from the local workforce, but project manager Pete Bond says that staff had been accommodating. "We're a multicultural industry, and around a third of our workforce are from ethnic minorities, so it's not an issue." In conjunction with the local authority and the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), the company ran a pre-employment training course for refugees focusing on English language skills and obtaining a UK driving licence. The English tuition was job-related, teaching bus industry terms, local phrases, and how to deal with customers, as well procedural matters of employment that are often new to refugees, such as filling out holiday forms. The company is now trying to put together a bigger programme with the LSC at regional level. Bond believes that the way forward lies in
partnerships between employers, local authorities and agencies, such as
Jobcentre Plus. "Initiatives should be employer-led, with the focus of the
training tailored to one or two industries," he says. "Groups of employers
could share the costs between them, so it would be financially viable."
|
|
St Mungo's is one of London's leading homeless agencies with a 700-strong workforce. It has successfully recruited for hard-to-fill posts by working with local group Refugees Into Jobs. Khurshid Alam, group personnel manager at St Mungo's, says that employers should recognise that refugees have a lot of potential that can benefit their organisations. "Employers need to have an open mind," he says. "English language skills are often seen as a barrier to work, but employers need to assess someone's suitability for a particular job, rather than setting a target that all individuals must reach. Someone employed as a cook obviously doesn't need the same level of communication skills as a receptionist." St Mungo's, like many London-based employers, has experienced difficulties in finding staff. It held a recruitment day at the offices of Refugees Into Jobs where refugees could meet staff and hear about the opportunities on offer. Refugees into Jobs checked people's eligibility to work. As a result of the exercise, St Mungo's offered two people temporary posts, one person a temporary placement and another volunteer work. Two individuals went on to secure a permanent post at the agency in open competition. "It
was a very positive experience for us," said Alam. "Employers have a lot
to gain by actively seeking partnerships with organisations such as
Refugees Into Jobs and the Employability
Forum." |
|
In 2001, following an approach from the Employability Forum, the London Borough of Camden offered five refugees a six-month work placement. The Equalities Unit supported the scheme and provided £5,000 funding to cover expenses for travel, subsistence and training. Personnel provided coordination, as well as administrative and pastoral support. The expectations of the people in placements were: · to become employable; · to improve communication skills; · to familiarise themselves with UK working practises; and · to put their skills to better use. The expectations of the Council manager/supervisor were: · to broaden the supervisory experience for managers; · to develop supervisory skills for officers not normally in that role; and · to alleviate an extensive workload. Throughout the programme, regular one-to-one and group meetings were held with the people in placements to share experiences and to receive feedback from managers. At the four-month stage, training on applying for a job and interview skills was offered to the refugees. Internal jobs within the council were identified and attempts were made to apply for vacancies. However, inability to articulate their skills and knowledge, as well as having to compete equally with other applicants, hindered success in obtaining full-time employment. At the end of the six-month placements, two people were offered temporary, paid positions and one is now a permanent employee in the council tax department, having successfully gone through the recruitment and selection process. For more information on Camden Council's
approach to working with refugees, see: Working with refugees: report of
the scrutiny panel looking at further education, employment and training
opportunities for refugees in Camden, July 2003 at www.camden.gov.uk/. |
|
"When I came to the UK a few years ago, I had no idea that finding a job in this country would be so difficult. As a young telecoms engineering graduate from a foreign university, I had the qualifications, experience and confidence to lead a decent life in Britain. But nothing ever seemed to work out for me, and my confidence and self-esteem took a nose-dive with every job application that I was turned down for - I was even rejected for work as a cashier at Sainsbury's. "Jobcentres and employment services did not offer me the desired help I needed to secure a job. One fateful day in April I spotted the Refugees Into Jobs building and decided to pop in and find out exactly what they did. Having discovered what a great effort they put in to getting refugees in to jobs, I decided to register with the agency there and then. "With the help of a recruitment consultant at Refugees Into Jobs, I enrolled in the careers focus programme covering confidence building, CV writing, interview techniques and job search. I was taught all the things I needed to know to help me secure a job. "As a qualified telecommunications engineer, I never dreamt that I would ever be able to get back in to engineering after such a long break from the profession. Now the hard work has paid off - I have secured a dream job with One-2-One." After just four months Ludmilla was promoted to team leader at One-2-One, now part of T-Mobile. Source: Refugees Into
Jobs. |
|
· Make it clear you welcome applications from the refugee community. · Circulate details of job vacancies via Employability Forum and its member agencies. · Give refugees feedback from interviews. · Conduct CV and interview clinics. · Second staff to work with agencies assisting refugees. · Arrange for refugees to visit your workplace. · Offer work experience opportunities. · Offer refugees access to in-house training. · Join groups to address barriers in specific professions. ·
Publicise success
stories. |
|
Employers provide a valuable perspective on the development of a strategy for refugee employment in the UK. The Employability Forum facilitates discussion of the barriers that prevent refugees from accessing the labour market. Meetings address specific issues raised by employers, such as alternative routes of recruitment, the need for simpler and swifter work documentation and the need for work-focused English language classes. Organisations involved in the Employers Group include: Abbey National, Angel Human Resources, BBC, B&Q, CBI, Choice Hotels Europe, CMS Cameron McKenna, Conran Restaurants, CRE, Ford, Grain d'Or, HBOS, Noon Products, Organisation Resources Counselors (ORC), Royal Mail, Royal College of Nursing, J Sainsbury, Thames Water, The Work Foundation, Travel West Midlands. For more information about the Employers Group or about membership and meetings, contact the Employability Forum, tel: 020 7981 0375, fax: 020 7981 0376, email: p.wintour@employabilityforum.co.uk. The
Employability Forum was established in 1999 as an umbrella body bringing
together voluntary sector organisations with a common concern about the
difficulties faced by refugees in securing appropriate employment. They
aim to develop strategies that match regional and local needs, encourage
the participation of local employers, provide mechanisms for sharing good
practice and information for employers, refugees and their
advisors. |
|
Department for Work and Pensions, www.dwp.gov.uk/. The Employability Forum , tel: 020 7981 0375, www.employabilityforum.co.uk/. The Home Office, www.workingintheuk.gov.uk/. Immigration and Nationality Directorate, www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/. JobCentre Plus, www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk/. The National Academic Recognition Information Centre oversees the recognition of foreign qualifications in the UK, tel: 01242 260 010, www.naric.org.uk/. National Insurance Registration Helpline, tel 0845 9157006/9155670. The Refugee Council, tel: 020 7820 3000, www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/. Refugees into Jobs, tel: 020 8908 4433,
email: rij@brent.gov.uk. |
