City fails to offer work for migrants

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

More than 11,000 immigrants in Auckland are unemployed.

And many migrants pack up after years of fruitless job-hunting and head for Australia.

Migrants from countries other than Pacific islands accounted for 11,471 - or 17 per cent - of Auckland's 66,807 registered unemployed in June.

Of the legion of jobless migrants, 3980 held university degrees or other tertiary qualifications, reflecting a serious mismatch between the points system allowing entry to New Zealand and our occupational needs.

Immigration Minister Lianne Dalziel, who says the system will be reviewed, has meanwhile invited Auckland mayors to apply for money from a $500,000 settlement fund to set up a migrant resource centre.

She also suggested that the Auckland Regional Chamber of Commerce seek a grant for a pilot scheme to introduce professional and business migrants to employer networks.

A working party of officials from the four Auckland cities is considering the resource centre proposal, among other migrant settlement ideas, after a meeting between Ms Dalziel and the mayors.

But the Government fund is no great concession to migrants. It comes from settlement levies they have been paying, of up to $940 a family, for no apparent return until now.

Work and Income is already running job introduction pilots in Auckland, including a scheme to give professional engineers work experience at no cost to employers.

It is having trouble finding enough corporate takers.

Ms Dalziel acknowledges prejudice among employers and recruitment agencies as a barrier and is appealing to them to give newcomers a fair go, not as an act of charity but for pragmatic business and economic reasons.

"We have a wasted resource in this country," she said. "It is up to us to give people a go but the point is that we all benefit."

Many migrants give up, staying for the three years needed to gain citizenship then moving to greener pastures.

The Australian Immigration and Multicultural Affairs Department says 9721, or 30.8 per cent, of 31,610 New Zealand passport-holders who emigrated across the Tasman in the year to June were born in third countries.

Work and Income says it is having some success placing migrants with qualifications and reasonable English skills in positions after they have completed job-seeking courses.

And the Auckland New Ventures Trust is seeking Government money to match a $40,000 council grant for an employment brokerage for migrants with high-technology skills.

But trustee Sandi Morrison says employers need to snap out of thinking of migrants as liabilities, and to treat them as valuable resources who could give their businesses a competitive edge globally.

She is disappointed that some employers press migrants to change or shorten their names to "fit in."

Although Ms Dalziel favours establishing a migrant resource centre, which she hopes will open next year, she says the Government wants to take its lead from local authorities to ensure there are no duplications or gaps in services.

She accuses the previous Government of failing to provide for migrant settlement.

"Once people arrived, that was the extent of their interest - they were only interested in numbers."

Herald Online feature: The jobs challenge

We invite your responses to a series of questions such as: what key policies would make it easier for unemployed people to move into and generate jobs?