ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the intersection of labour market experience of permanently protected humanitarian entrants who arrived in Australia in the 1990s-2000s and the Australian immigration and settlement policies pertinent to their experiences. The data used come from a three-year research project focused on employment outcomes of three refugee groups (ex-Yugoslavs, black Africans and ‘Middle Easterners’) in relation to their racial and cultural visibility and therefore a potential for being discriminated against in the labour market. One hundred fifty respondents (fifty from each group) had high human capital profile, but the employment outcomes, after on average five to seven years of residence, were poor, which is consistent with government statistics that show humanitarian entrants having considerably poorer employment outcomes than other immigration streams. This is usually blamed on low human capital and refugee trauma, but this project indicates that other factors may be at work. Among them, labour market segmentation, which allocates visibly different refugees into undesirable jobs, may be the main one. Labour market segmentation results from systemic discrimination (e.g. nonrecognition of qualifications) and is reinforced by mainstream prejudices and negative stereotyping of racially and culturally different immigrants and refugees by employers.
