Migrant Skill Underuse Costs Billions, Discrimination Key

Pathways to resolving Australia's skills shortage were a key discussion point at the government's recent economic reform roundtable . One of those discussions specifically focused on the need to streamline skills recognition for qualified migrants.

The Productivity Commission has highlighted the continuing mismatch for many migrants between their skills and qualifications and their level of employment over the past decade.

In research commissioned by non-profit Settlement Services International last year, Deloitte Access Economics put a number to that mismatch. They found that if permanent migrants worked in jobs matching their skills at the same rate as their Australian-born counterparts, A$70 billion could be added to the economy over the next 10 years.

That calculation was based on recent permanent migrants across the skilled, family and humanitarian pathways, with 44% working in jobs below their skill level.

To investigate the drivers of this mismatch, we interviewed permanent skilled migrants with high-level professional qualifications about their experiences entering the labour force.

Engineers are driving taxis

In the 2023-24 financial year, 210,000 visas were granted by the Australian government across these three pathways, of which 65% (137,100) went to skilled migrants. This week, the government set the permanent migration intake for 2025-26 at 185,000.

Given qualifications are one of the key factors for acceptance via the skilled migration program, it would be reasonable to assume the same skills mismatch is less common for skilled migrants. However, a CEDA report found almost one in four permanent skilled migrants were working in a job beneath their skill level.

In some industries, that figure is even higher. For example, only 50% of overseas-born qualified engineers in Australia's labour force actually work in engineering . Instead, many are driving taxis, Ubers or stacking supermarket shelves. Why is this the case?

Formal recognition of overseas qualifications and experience is important, but our research found skilled migrants also experienced language discrimination from potential employers, which contributes to their underemployment .

Your communication skills 'aren't up to scratch'

Our research shows job interviews are often where this discrimination is first experienced. Migrants' lack of success in these interviews is often cloaked in terms of "communication problems" by the Australian employers. For example, a male accountant from Singapore said:

The next thing I heard from the recruitment company that brought me in was to say I have communication problems; my communication skills aren't up to scratch […] And I say, 'What part?' 'They said that you had to repeat.' And I recall, he [the interviewer] asked a question and probably [because of] my accent, and he didn't get it and I had to say it again.

Australia has welcomed an increasingly diverse migrant population over the past decade. The largest regional groupings are Southern and Central Asia (including India, Pakistan and Nepal) and Northeast Asia (including China, Hong Kong and South Korea).

However, skilled migrants from culturally and racially marginalised backgrounds often don't even make it to the interview stage. A female skilled migrant from India who was working in healthcare said:

I have a very Thai sounding name, so they look at your name and they assume you don't speak English. I've had calls where they've approached me to invite me for an interview and they're like, 'Oh, your English is very good.'

Language policing in the workplace

Despite Australia's anti-discrimination laws , both systemic and interpersonal racial discrimination persist, including within workplaces.

Our research found that everyday discrimination continued to limit skilled migrants' abilities to undertake work aligned with their skills and qualifications, even after obtaining their first job.

Again, language differences appeared to be a more "acceptable" way for prejudices to be expressed. A female IT professional from Malaysia spoke about her early workplace experience:

They were very condescending [in a way that showed] they think they are so much better than us. In the beginning, [my manager] just always pretended that she does not understand my English.

Such biases (whether conscious or unconscious ) are undermining the very productivity benefits that Australia is seeking to gain through the skilled migration program.

Australia has always been multilingual. Today, more than 100 migrant languages are regularly spoken in Australian homes. Varieties of English are also in daily use (Aboriginal, Irish, Singaporean, Malaysian, to name a few).

Being able to communicate successfully with people who speak different varieties of English is a basic skill in Australian society. Therefore, locating the source of linguistic bias in our settlement and employment processes and addressing it will benefit all members of the community.

Linguistic prejudice is rooted in power structures which dictate how the language and values of powerful groups dominate others. If we happen by chance to be members of the powerful groups, we probably have prejudices and biases that serve these groups and our own interests.

In our study, linguistic bias manifested as concerns about communication, which formed barriers to employment for the skilled migrants. Action is needed at governmental and industry levels to ensure education for all individuals who play a role in recruitment.

However, we all have a role to play - and a benefit to gain - through reviewing and challenging our own linguistic biases.

Melissa Parris has received funding from the Australian Research Council in the past (DP1092722).

Maggie McAlinden has received funding from the Council for Arab Australian Relations (B011) and the Department of Communities in the past.

Uma Jogulu has received funding from the Australian Research Council in the past (DP1092722).