State of the Nation: Employment

While there has been an improvement in some dimensions of immigrant labour market perf o r mance over time, immigrants of non-English speaking background are carrying an incre a s i n g l y inequitable burden of unemployment in the 1990s compared with the 1970s. This is particularly the case for women, young people and refugees. In short, the gap in unemployment rates betwe e n the Australian born and those born in n o n English speaking countries has widened considerably in the last 20 years. The needs of the second generation cannot be overlooked either, and examples in this chapter of discrimination on the basis of visible difference and nonAnglicised names provide some evidence of this. Unequal labour market outcomes raise the questions of whether the labour market is meritocratic and fairly reflects differing abilities or whether racial discrimination is playing a role in determining immigrant labour market outcomes. There is evidence of the latter and this is presented in this chapter. Moreover, changes in industrial relations and vocational education and training hold the potential for newer, more subtle forms of discrimination to emerge in coming years. The trend of increasing discrimination of an indirect nature is cause for concern. These developments, if left unchecked, may prevent people of non-English speaking background from taking job opportunities appropriate to their abilities.