The main priority of the Refugee Resettlement Program in the United States (other countries have different priorities) is self-sufficiency as soon as possible. All the stakeholders in this process recognize that there are many important factors to self-sufficiency including stable housing, English language training, community integration, and not least employment.
So, let’s take a few moments to talk about refugees and jobs.
- Agency employment staff members develop relationships with employers and with clients.
By getting to know their clients, their work histories, how much their monthly expenses are, where they live and what their transportation options are, employment staff members are able to connect each client with the best possible job.
The relationship with the employer is as important as the relationship with the client. Developing relationships with employers allows employment staff members to better understand the jobs available. This means workers will have more options as well as more realistic expectations. Those relationships also make it possible for the employer to go back to the employment staff if a placement doesn’t work out. The key to these relationships, according to one of our partners, is open communication.
- Agency employment staff members provide job training.
Job training usually includes an orientation to workplace expectations in the United States. Some clients have extensive work history but in a very different culture. Other clients may have no formal work experience, having been vendors or farmers in a rural system of entrepreneurship. These trainings ultimately lead to increased job retention.
Job training may provide an introduction to how to complete an application. This is usually done in the first weeks upon arrival as clients don’t yet have the necessary documents to work but have all the desire. Learning how to translate their life experiences into work histories and gaining the English skills needed to complete a job application will help clients get better jobs. Better jobs mean earlier self-sufficiency.
- Refugees are eager to get to work.
We often hear endearing stories of clients calling resettlement agency supervisors to complain that they haven’t been placed in jobs yet. In most of these stories, the supervisor looks into it and finds out the client has only been in the US for a few days and doesn’t yet have all the paperwork necessary to work. We also hear about refugee elders who are entitled to social security benefits, but would rather be working.
Those anecdotes are evidence of refugees’ drive to support themselves and their families. One employment specialist explained that refugees are eager to work because, “The ability to provide for one’s family and self is incredibly fulfilling and restores a sort of normalcy that is so often missing when someone arrives in a new place.”
- Refugees aren’t taking jobs away from anyone else.
Many of the jobs that our clients start out at are relatively low wage but very physically demanding. They may be processing vegetables or meat in a very cold environment on their feet for eight to ten hours a day. These same employers place billboards on the interstate hoping anyone will apply. The employment specialist at World Relief Memphis, Emily, explains that, “Based on the sole fact that they have fled persecution, refugees already show they are resilient and hard working.” For them, this isn’t an interim job, it’s a path to self-sufficiency with benefits and opportunities for growth.
We’ll leave you with an example:
Alina was resettled from Ukraine through one of our partners in 2017. She got to work as quickly as possible and received very positive feedback from her employer, a small sewing company. Here are some of the words and phrases her employer used to describe her: 