Rejection and menial jobs often the newcomer's lot

By FIONA BARBER

A New Zealand-born worker, an Iraqi and a Briton apply for the same job.

You, as an employer, hire the local - not because the others are any less qualified, just because you feel more comfortable that way.

There is no punchline to this hypothetical tale. It is merely a scenario immigration consultant Bill Milnes sketches to explain what new arrivals face in the exhausting and repetitive game that is job-hunting.

Qualifications and experience go only so far when - in tough financial times - employers opt to go with a perceived known quantity.

That is only one of the many hurdles facing immigrants who may have sacrificed careers, social standing and money to set up home in New Zealand.

Their qualifications, cash and family ties have afforded them entry, but once here they need homes, jobs and sometimes help with English.

Some have positions organised before they arrive, but for many the job treadmill will be their most arduous challenge.

What help do they get?

The Immigration Service produces a settlement kit with screeds of information about living in New Zealand. But the first page of the Working in New Zealand booklet carries these bald warnings:

"The job market in New Zealand is very competitive and some employers may not recognise your overseas qualifications and training.

"Although you have gained points towards your New Zealand residence approval based on your qualifications and experience, this may not mean you will easily find a job in your preferred career."

The experience of Taiwanese doctor-turned-Henderson feijoa orchardist Ming-teh Cheng is typical.

He came to New Zealand five years ago under the false impression that he could work as a doctor. Faced with the harsh reality that he could no longer use the skills he spent years honing, he resorted to buying an orchard.

The Government has come to the aid of foreign doctors, but even when their qualifications and training match local requirements, other factors can come in to play.

"One of the key issues about employment is not that employers are racist," says Mr Milnes. But faced with a choice, many would hire New Zealanders because they believe they know the way locals think.

"You feel more comfortable - therefore taking on a migrant is a risk," says Mr Milnes, who is also spokesman for the Association for Migration and Investment.

However, a recruitment firm, Morgan and Banks Technology (MBT), has criticised companies for a xenophobic attitude towards hiring migrants.

These companies are making New Zealand's IT shortages worse by ignoring talent from non-Western countries, says MBT general manager Stuart Bennett.

"Xenophobic attitudes mean opportunities for growth are being lost, and in some cases companies put themselves at risk by turning their back on such people.

"These people could be of huge benefit to the individual companies, and to the New Zealand economy as a whole."

That criticism is backed by the Equal Opportunities Trust, which says: "Consultants committed to quality are reporting great difficulty in getting talented applicants with non-English names on to shortlists."

When migrants cannot find work, they often head back overseas, and the resulting drop in immigration, particularly from Asia, so disturbs the Government that it is funding pilot schemes in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch to assist Asian professionals.

Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel says that "too many skilled people coming to this country [are] not getting the work they deserve."

"I personally know of highly skilled professional migrants who are still driving taxis."

Mr Milnes says that a person denied a job because he or she sits outside an employer's comfort zone may have crucial overseas contacts.

"That's where [there are] a lot of missed opportunities for New Zealand companies, for those that could be exporting."

Gilbert Peterson, spokesman for the Northern Employers and Manufacturers Association, agrees that immigrants bring potentially important overseas contacts.

"Of course there are potential overseas connections - [but there are] two sides to that coin."

Mr Peterson says employers are simply looking for people who can do the job.

"So many businesses work in teams, you want someone to fit into your team.

"The local person in most instances will fit in."

It is all about reducing risk in uncertain times, he claims.

Last year Professor Chris Selvarajah, then a teacher of international management at Massey University, said he was glad that New Zealand was not attracting more migrants because those already here were not coping. Rates of unemployment were around 30 per cent in many immigrant communities.

Professor Selvarajah said that one of the issues was that overseas qualifications were not recognised here.

"People here do not seem to think that qualifications from Asia are worth anything. We have got to change that mindset.

"It's very frustrating for people to come here with master's degrees, PhDs and professional qualifications and not get jobs. It's not their fault, it's our fault."

In March this year, the immigrant academic who had planned to make New Zealand his permanent home moved to Melbourne.

A Malaysian-born Sri Lankan educated in Australia and New Zealand, he had decided to shift to New Zealand from Australia in 1994. But after six years he no longer wanted to stay.

"It's still difficult for immigrants ... Difficult to progress no matter how hard you work," he said from Melbourne, where he is now a full professor and head of master of business administration programmes at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University.

"Across the Tasman there you get a greater mix of populations, prospects are better."

New Zealand, he says, suffers from a smaller population and lack of job opportunities.

"The critical mass is important, and New Zealand doesn't offer that."

He believes employers here need to be educated to the potential of immigrant workers.

As a university teacher, he witnessed the human toll among overseas-born students passed over for jobs.

"Many of them are excellent academics. Our employers are very short-sighted. They look at them and say their English isn't very good. But within 12 months, their English improves.

"Although my students were good, they were not getting jobs. What do you tell them?"

A Citizens Advice Bureau survey found that migrants qualified in medicine, dentistry, veterinary practice and engineering in particular had been admitted to New Zealand on the basis of their qualifications but had been refused registration by the appropriate professional body.

Many skilled, talented and highly motivated migrants have been ignored or neglected since arriving in New Zealand, says bureau chief executive Rachael Le Mesurier.

"The irony is that many unemployed migrants are in fields that have a demand for qualified professionals.

" In addition, they face discrimination when trying to get work," she said.

"People talk of applying for a job and being told it's been filled. Then, a few days later, they have seen it readvertised."

Many migrants have to think laterally to break into the job market.

A baker's dozen of information technology workers from China and Taipei took to the classrooms of South Auckland as a means of getting vital local experience.

After the numerous rebuffs by Auckland employers, the group chose to become teacher volunteers, trading computer skills for the chance to hone their English and also experience the New Zealand style of employment.

Lucy Xia, from Wuhan in China, has more than five years' experience as an information technology engineer and also taught at university but has had a fruitless two-year job search here.

"I'm very happy to join this team and to have a chance to teach the children," she says. "Even if it's simple, it's very useful because doing our teaching, we also get local experience."

Yar-Fine Liu, from Taiwan, says that "every employer ask for local experience."

"Nobody take risk to hire us, so we fall into loop - nobody hire me because of no experience, but how do I get experience?"

Employers, says Professor Selvarajah, must get their heads around the notion that immigrants are New Zealanders too.

Mr Peterson says that fact is not lost on the people he represents.

He says there is an element of immigrants having to prove themselves in their new environment - but that is an international situation.

And yes, if the economy was much stronger employers would be prepared to take more risks.

"And that's a fact."

The immigrants - a Herald series

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