A Pathway to Employment: "Well, racism definitely plays a part"

This is part three of my sensory journey across the field of employment equity. In this section I write about what I learnt about Upwardly Global (UpGlo) and economic integration for refugees and immigrants.

I spent an hour at Upwardly Global and asked if I could run through a few questions with them. I can’t name names because I didn’t ask for permission, but I figure I can record a summation of their responses.

Part 1: A Pathway to Employment: The Sensory Journey

Part 2: They’re made to believe they don’t have worth

Part 3: Well, racism definitely plays a part

Part 4: Until every working woman is given her due.

After arriving in the United States of America and receiving employment authorisation, I hopped into the job market. As with everyone else looking for work, I found it pretty tricky, buffeted by the usual rejections and lack of responses.

People told me that once I found a job here, any job, it would be so much easier to find better jobs. Employers wanted proof that I was a good fit in American companies, they said, so I just had to get my foot in the door.

A few months down and I am living out my last week before I start my new job. I have been privileged. My first name is European in origin and my surname is not easily traced to any specific country. I emigrated from a western country, I speak English, and I can blather on very well about western values.

Would I have had the same outcome if I came from a different country and spoke English with a definite foreign accent? Perhaps, but I cannot be certain.

It makes me think of the struggles my parents had when they first arrived in Australia as refugees from war stricken Vietnam, and the similar struggles that my new friends from overseas are currently experiencing here in Chicago.

If I did not have the support of my network in Chicago and an upbringing in an English speaking country, I would be in an infinitely more difficult position.

Before moving to the US, my colleagues gave me contact details for people they knew in Chicago. A series of coffees with different people eventually led me to a meeting with a staff member at Upwardly Global.

UpGlo is an organisation that supports skilled immigrants and refugees to integrate into the professional US workforce. They assist job seekers to find employment, and also work with hiring companies by providing training to eliminate barriers on the employment side.

I didn’t qualify for any of UpGlo’s programs, but I figured the conversation might still be useful (and fascinating) regardless.

Here are several things I learnt from that conversation:

• It’s extremely difficult to get employers to hire immigrants on a repeat basis. Employers enter the UpGlo programs because they are interested in diversifying their workplace, because they want to engage with a not-for-profit program or because they are struggling to fill a role. But these reasons are not enough to motivate repeated success in diverse recruitment. Hiring managers want to hire people who are just like them - it’ll make their working lives easier. HR people want to hire people who have done the exact same job in the exact same company - it’ll minimise their onboarding responsibilities.

• It is extremely difficult to get employers to hire immigrants in the first place. The excuses employers give range from concern about the employee’s communication skills and lack of US working experience, to distrust of foreign degrees and certifications. Some employers argue that they should prioritise “local” jobs. That immigrants have already become local to the US is not something they have parsed. At worst, is the sound of quiet disinterest.

• The hiring rate is the worst for black men. The only explanation for this is simple racism (if racism can ever be simple). There isn’t more I can say about this that others haven’t already. But I’ve also been thinking about employment post incarceration. If black men are overrepresented in American prisons, if ex-offenders find it extremely difficult to re-enter the job market, and if black men are discriminated against on the employment stage, then recidivism is the obvious answer to the question of survival.

• The Trump administration has made it increasingly difficult to obtain work authorisation if you are an asylum seeker.

• Success looks like an America that is welcoming. It is behavioural change in recruiting, written changes in policy, shifts in personal values, attitudes and awareness of unconscious bias. However, the US, and in particular middle America, does not have the resources to drive this change.

• There is no one size fits all program to promote diverse hiring. Some companies have achieved more success in diverse hiring than others by finding out what works for them - but their solutions are all anchored around a person or a team - a diversity recruiter or an invested recruitment team.

• Maintaining a steady income for not-for-profit organisations is extremely difficult. Chasing government grants can provide a steady income stream, but has high reporting requirements and general red tape. Individual beneficiaries can be very generous, but their money comes with specific requests that limit how the money can be used. Fundraising to collect small donations from large numbers of people can add up, but that requires a lot of resources invested into community organising.