Guiding Refugees in Europe on a Rocky Path to Assimilation
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Version 0 of 1. AMSTERDAM — Mahmoud al-Omar leaned over a sewing machine in the basement of a former prison being used to house refugees and began stitching jeans for a popular clothing line. With more than 15 years experience as a tailor in Syria, he zipped through one pair and moved on to another, methodically filling a small order. The job, set up by a Dutch organization that matches refugees with work opportunities, is only temporary. Yet after Mr. Omar fled his war-torn hometown, Aleppo, two years ago, just having a place to go each day felt like a salvation. “Working is completely necessary to speed up integration,” said Mr. Omar, 28, who still struggles to speak Dutch, hindering his chances of a full-time job. “I want to become independent as soon as possible, so I can start giving back to the country that took me in.” When more than one million men, women and children streamed into Europe last year to seek a haven from conflict and poverty in the Middle East and Africa, governments viewed the labor market as the quickest path to absorb newcomers. The sooner people started working, the thinking went, the faster they could get off government aid and start contributing to the economy. Yet permanent jobs have proven elusive. The lack of language is a big barrier, as is a skills mismatch. Some refugees do not have the right experience, while others cannot get their professional qualifications or degrees recognized. Private initiatives have sprung up across Europe to help. The Refugee Company, the Dutch group that steered Mr. Omar toward work, is one of scores guiding refugees into professional networks and opportunities to improve employability. “The best thing is to try to get people close to work from Day 1, because there’s a long waiting period from the beginning that’s wasted time,” said Jihad Asad, an energetic entrepreneur from Syria who is a co-director at the Refugee Company. “As a refugee, once you see that your talent is useful and needed, you get a sense that you can keep going,” added Mr. Asad, who received asylum in the Netherlands last summer. “There’s a light at the end of the tunnel.” The adjustment has been harder than expected. The Netherlands, Germany and other countries amended laws to ease access to the labor market, allowing newcomers to work almost immediately instead of waiting months or sometimes years. European businesses began to take on tens of thousands of qualified refugees. But many of those positions are part of internships or vocational programs that have yet to turn into long-term employment. In Germany, most of the 30,000 refugees working are in temporary positions or menial jobs arranged by the government paying 1 euro ($1.10) an hour. Such jobs help them interact with German society, but they are not a path to permanent employment. Although hundreds of German companies pledged to employ refugees, only a small fraction have done so in the last two years, according to a recent survey by the Center for Economic Studies in Munich. To date, around 60 refugees have found full-time jobs at Germany’s 30 largest companies, a separate survey showed. Among that group, 50 went to a single company, DeutschePost, the large courier company. Another 100 refugees are still in temporary work there. “Many of those who came to Europe took tremendous risks, they have an entrepreneurial spirit and want to aim high,” said Christof Ehrhart, a DeutschePost spokesman who helps oversee the company’s efforts to hire refugees. But when some start interning in a package warehouse, he added, it was not always a good fit. “Maybe they don’t like the job,” he said. “Or other circumstances make it hard for them to fulfill the needs of the job.” Language is still the biggest issue. Mr. Omar had long experience working as a tailor since age 13. But his lack of proficiency in Dutch and English posed a challenge to would-be employers. European companies often do not recognize professional certificates or academic degrees acquired in Syria and countries with different educational standards, putting candidates on an awkward footing with competitors. Others arrived without employable skills and required intensive training. Fleur Bakker, an activist, started the Refugee Company with the view that people assimilate more quickly if they can start working immediately, rather than waiting months for paperwork to clear or until a real job materializes. In the Netherlands, which received 47,600 asylum seekers last year, newcomers are not permitted to work for six months. Many were growing isolated and even suicidal as they idled in shelters, Ms. Bakker said. Ms. Bakker found about 40 Dutch companies that agreed to mentor refugees and tap them for temporary work that, ideally, would lead to permanent jobs matching their talent. She collaborated with the City of Amsterdam to make it possible for refugees to get work experience shortly after arrival. For those lucky enough to land a job, assimilation can come quickly. Dr. Muaz Swaid, 27, a Syrian dentist who fled conflict in 2014, found work in the spring through the Refugee Company at Rechte Tanden, an orthodontist clinic that had trouble finding qualified Dutch workers. He languished in shelters for a year before that, at one point sharing space with 400 asylum seekers in a large tent. “In those conditions, you can’t think about the future,” said Mr. Swaid, an energetic man. “It’s hard enough to make a new beginning, but in the shelter, you’re just hoping to stay alive.” His main goal on arriving, he said, was to find work and stop living on government subsidies for refugees. “It’s important to make my own life,” he said, smiling at colleagues who bustled around the sterile, white clinic. “This country helped me, so I must do something — it’s paying them back.” After signing a work contract, he stopped receiving a €950 monthly stipend from the government to help pay living expenses and rent on a small apartment. Now, he pays the government around €700 a month in taxes from the salary he earns at the clinic and from a second job at a local bar. As he becomes more established, he expects his salary, and his tax contributions, to keep rising. This month, the Refugee Company opened a facility in a mothballed prison that the city had converted to refugee housing. Inside is a glassed-in office and a spacious meeting room where refugees gather regularly to discuss employment strategies and forge business connections to help others with assimilation. Dutch restaurant and hotel owners are working on an internal cafe and plan to convert some of the former prison cells into eclectic luxury hotel rooms. The businesses would be run by refugees to give them experience and jobs and to help the restaurants and hotels to identify the best talent for eventual work in their companies. Near the office, a row of sewing machines was installed to fill orders from Dutch clothing cooperatives and even fashion designers preparing collections for Paris fashion week. When the Refugee Company put out a notice seeking skilled refugee tailors, Mr. Omar was one of 20 people to answer the call. “Just being in a workplace and interacting with Dutch people makes you feel like you’re a part of the society,” said Mr. Omar, as a group of other newly minted Dutch citizens buzzed around him. “You start to feel comfortable and gain confidence that you will eventually get a job and be independent.” |