KEY POINTS:
Almost every New Zealander can tell a story about a taxi driver with an advanced degree in engineering or business.
Next year, at last, two new schemes will be launched to make better use of migrants' skills, estimated to cost the country billions of dollars in lost potential.
The Tindall Foundation has given $450,000 to a programme, backed so far by 34 of Auckland's biggest businesses, that will provide mentors and internships to migrants seeking jobs in their skilled areas.
And the ASB Trust and Lottery Grants Board are funding a smaller scheme to help refugees into work.
Committee for Auckland director Kaaren Goodall, who has helped put the first scheme together, says Auckland is wasting billions of dollars of economic potential by letting highly qualified immigrants drive taxis or work in warehouses or supermarkets.
"We are one of the top cities in the world for the number of people foreign-born, with one in three of us. We are a wonderfully diverse bunch," she said.
The committee modelled the new scheme on one in Toronto, Canada, which has found skilled jobs for 85 per cent of its clients.
A trial this year found jobs for four out of nine migrants, including an Indian software specialist who had driven a taxi for five years. He found a job in his field in three weeks through his mentor's networks.
"The way most people get jobs in New Zealand is through word of mouth and networks," said Simon Vannini, a lawyer at Simpson Grierson who helped organise the trial as part of a leadership training scheme.
A refugee from Burundi, Odetta Ntezicimpa, has found a job at the Christian charity Child Fund through the second new scheme, run by the Auckland Regional Migrant Services Trust in Mt Roskill.
A trained teacher in her home country, she was forced to flee because of war in 1993 and spent five years as a refugee in Tanzania and Kenya before gaining resettlement in New Zealand in 1999 with her partner and their first two children, then aged 3 and just two months.
She worked as a caregiver but her goal is to qualify here as a teacher or a socialworker.
She attended the migrant trust's pilot employment programme for refugees, and found a job when Child Fund asked the trust to recommend someone who knew about the countries where it runs development programmes. She now liaises with the fund's 25,000 child sponsors in this country.
"I do like to talk to people. That is my vocation," she said.
The migrant trust's director, Dr Mary Dawson, said the scheme would be extended next year to new places such as Selwyn College, which already runs English language courses for refugees.
Massey University sociologist Paul Spoonley said New Zealand had taken a long time to realise that it needed to work actively to make the best use of the diverse migrants who have come here.
"I think we assumed that they would just adjust without any help from ourselves, and it's now great to see that there are some programmes that are actually beginning to deliver good jobs to the immigrants."
OVERSEAS-BORN
* 37 per cent of Aucklanders.
* 51 per cent of Aucklanders with bachelor's degrees or above.
* 47 per cent of Aucklanders who are unemployed and actively seeking work.
Source: 2006 Census
www.arms-mrc.org.nz
www.competitiveauckland.co.nz
