- Hannah Barry
"They feel you've gone to university for three to five years, you get your qualification and then all of a sudden, you come here and you can't get the job that you had or you know you were a manager before and all of a sudden you're being managed... it proves to be quite difficult."
Released on Tuesday, the Minimising skills wastage: maximising the health of skilled migrant groups report revealed more than half of WA's skilled migrant workforce are working lower-skilled jobs than before they migrated, highlighting the long term effects on their mental health and well being as a result.
According to a survey of 508 WA-based skilled migrants, 53.1 per cent said they had less-skilled jobs here than before they migrated.
In its examples, the report noted a former engineer who had migrated to WA who now works as a technician, a vocational school teacher turned cleaner and packer, a geologist now working in aged care and a mechanical engineer recently employed as a security officer.
A number of migrants anonymously spoke about their experiences attempting to find work in their field and detailed obstacles they faced when applying for a job.
FOR FULL STORY PLEASE CLICK THE LINK BELOW:
www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/was-migrant-workforce-how-we-are-wasting-our-best-minds-20171121-gzpqs9.html