[Pulsarblu]

Muslims struggle for jobs
19 January 2006
By JANINE BENNETTS

Over half of Christchurch's adult Muslim migrants are unemployed ? the worst rate in New Zealand, Muslim groups say.

The Muslim Association of Canterbury says this is despite many adults being highly trained professionals with years of higher education.

Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand president Javed Khan said Muslim unemployment was a problem throughout the country, but Christchurch's figures seemed much worse than anywhere else.

After more than 500 job applications, information technology (IT) specialist Abdelfattah Qasem, who is secretary of the Canterbury association, is still unemployed.

Of the hundreds of jobs he has applied for during the four years he has lived in New Zealand, Qasem has had only one telephone interview.

There are about 3000 Muslims in Christchurch, and Qasem said well over half of the Muslim adults in the city could not find jobs.

Many people were IT specialists, doctors, engineers or teachers in their home countries and had assumed that their degrees and international experience would make getting a job in New Zealand easy.

"There are so many opportunities here, and this is what we see on the internet and this is what immigration says, but no immigration or anyone can force people to hire certain people," Qasem said.

He is from Palestine and has an IT degree from a private institute in Texas.

He had more than 20 years experience in the industry as an IT manager and consultant in Kuwait, earning about $NZ100,000 a year, before he came to New Zealand.

Most of his rejection letters said the firms had found someone who met their requirements better than he did, Qasem said.

When he applied for lower positions, he was told he was over-qualified.

Qasem said the unemployment problem was frustrating for Muslim families, and in some cases led to divorces or depression. He estimated that 25 per cent of people ended up returning home.

Enterprise Recruitment manager of IT recruitment Alan Diepraam, who was shown Qasem's curriculum vitae yesterday, said Qasem's qualifications and experience looked good on paper, but IT was a specialised industry and applicants had to fit a long list of requirements. Qasem has never been in full-time work in New Zealand.

Family members were lucky that his job in Kuwait had given them enough money to buy a house in Christchurch, but it was hard not having a steady income, Diepraam said. Qasem has not been able to afford to send his three children home to visit friends and family.

Mohammed Jabawe, who is the head of Christchurch's Iraqi community, has a PhD in architecture and city planning from the University of Manchester in England. He worked for a decade overseas before coming to Christchurch 10 years ago.

Unable to get a job suited to his qualifications here, he did odd jobs until he bought a dairy in Avonhead five years ago.

Jabawe said one of the hardest parts of unemployment was not the financial strain but that the education and skills he had were going to waste. "I feel sorry because I know we have intelligence. It's not money, it's education," he said.

Office of Ethnic Affairs director Mervin Singham said employers were often afraid of the risks in taking on someone from another country.

Singham said host countries needed to realise the benefits of hiring people from overseas and the advantages linguistic and cultural diversity could bring to businesses.

In December 2004, the Depart-ment of Labour set up a natural-settlement strategy that includes goals for improving employment opportunities for migrants and refugees.