Breaking the Cycle: How Employment Fosters Refugee Independence
For most, their arrival in Australia is a life-saving moment of hope and a tangible chance to start again from zero. Moving from refugee dependency to independence, however, requires not only resettlement but also work. Finding work is the best way to break the common entanglement of income dependence over long periods and charity. It restores former dependent refugees to independence and self-reliance.
The Challenge of Dependency
For instance, a refugee who comes to Australia needs first of all support from governmental and nongovernmental organisations to provide basic needs, such as housing, food, clothes, and health support. Most of the recent refugees rely on free support to establish their new life as they have little knowledge about the local culture, language and environment.
While indispensable in the short term, welfare based on a recipient approach ultimately becomes a strong disincentive for refugee human capital accumulation, and invites donor-driven programmes that are dependent, static and paternalistic (based on the premise that refugees can hardly develop any more agency, or capacity to change, to improve their social inclusion). Hence, welfare can prolong subordination and dependency rather than being an enabler of refugee participation in society or the capacity to lead the meaningful lives that they often aspire to lead – through work and being productive members of society.
The only way possible to break the cycle is to provide meaningful opportunities to work, and employment is much more than just a pay cheque. It is the fabric of independence that enables refugees to establish roots within the community and to hope and aspire to a rewarding and fulfilling life in Australia.
The Role of Employment in Fostering Independence
In turn, working helps to foster further integration; the refugee becomes less dependent on the state or beneficence and can for the first time feed herself and her family. Alongside greater social standing, another subsequent step towards political inclusion is that, once the refugee quasi-earns her income, she can cease to be a recipient of taxes and can become a taxpayer too. She can enter economic life, taking on the usual financial responsibilities – although her reliance on state support will inevitably continue, and might well grow.
But beyond access to resources, employment also gives refugees human connection, purpose and fulfillment. It is a moment of liberty – a reclaiming of the existential human dignity so drastically compromised by displacement – when a refugee walks through those swinging doors and into an interview room. For many refugees, perhaps the most crucial human experience affirming their incorporation into an Australian national community is the experience of employment.
Another is that, even if jobs are initially on the books, work experience offers new skills, a local working heritage and, importantly, professional networks. These can be a missing key to track an ongoing career and blossom into well-rounded professionals.
Economic and Social Benefits for Australia
This serves to benefit the individual, but also the community around the individual and, ultimately, the Australian economy because when refugees work they pay tax; refugees go shopping; refugees stimulate the economy. Ultimately, this can lead to an improved Gross Domestic Product,’ Nielsen said. ‘But it’s also a good way of taking the strain off the social welfare bill and re-allocating funds to provide other forms of social services.
Second, refugee employment fosters social inclusion and solidarity: ‘It is good for a society that its members, especially people in desperate need, of whom the term “refugees” is a survival, are enabled to work. It helps these people to be productive and contributing members of our society and thus facilitate a sense of belonging in us and them.’
How Employers Can Help Break the Cycle
Employers are vital in this task of making refugees independent by providing them access to employment and gradually ensuring that they become self-reliant.\n\nBy hiring refugees, businesses help make people independent and self-sufficient. At the same time, an ever-increasing share of jobs in the years ahead will be in low-skilled services – jobs that businesses both want and need workers for.
Employers can offer support in the form of – ‘part-time, flexible work arrangement; … mentorship programme to help build” skills;staff language training and an ‘English enhancement program;cultural orientation’. These measures ‘ensure that the employment configurations allow refugees to perform new work roles and support their cultural integration successfully’.
Conclusion
As Garden notes: ‘Work is the final step for resolving dependency and enabling future self-reliance for refugees’. Employing refugees is one way Australian business could help them rebuild their lives, achieve financial independence and contribute to their community.
Similarly, for employers, what refugees can do – their skills, experience and their motivation – is a great contribution to working life, so refugee employment is really a ‘win-win’ – a win-win for refugees, and a win-win for society. Refugee employment is therefore a road to independence and a better future for all.
