Volunteer Research Entries

By Claire Lassaline

A common issue that refugees face in their host countries is the inability to apply previously gained skills to their new place of residence. There are many cases of refugees being unable to pursue various educational trajectories or career paths due to the difference in standards of schooling and workforce requirements within Canada. As a result, many refugees who are very highly educated, have a plethora of workplace experience, or relevant skills are unable to continue in their previous paths. This leads to the issue of refugees being forced into taking jobs that require different requirements, often less highly valued skills, and a lower income. As employment, lifestyle and wellbeing are strongly correlated, this issue creates further perpetuated problems for each realm of a person's life and may have consequences past what is initially thought. These links often go undiscussed or their magnitude is under appreciated by many. This issue is further complicated as the regulations for employment or education are an institutional standard set and so they are hard to change for one person. Consequently, to change this problem, significant time, resources, agreement among many people and innovation is needed. The amount of change needed is not seen as being feasible by many of these institutions and so this challenge continues to impact many people. This has individual consequences for the refugees unable to attain employment matching their job level, their family, community and the country as a whole. This is a widespread issue across Canada and the world. A resolution must be made to allow for a bettered quality of life for refugees who are navigating these problems, however, there has been little progress on this issue.