- Title
- Australian Muslim jobseekers: labour market experience, job readiness, and the relative effectiveness of employment support services: a research report
- Creator
- Lovat, Terry; Mitchell, Bill; Nilan, Pam; Hosseini, S. A. Hamed; Cook, Beth; Samarayi, Ibtihal; Mansfield, Michelle
- Publisher
- University of Newcastle
- Resource Type
- report
- Date
- 2011
- Description
- The notion of engaging in study of ‘Muslim Jobseekers’ appeared at first to be slightly misplaced. ‘Muslim’ is primarily a religious connotation. Research on unemployment tends to suggest that educational background, English-speaking competence, ethnicity, gender and age, among other factors, are relevant categories in employment success. Religion is relegated to marginal consideration at best. It is not always comfortable to talk about religion in the same breath as unemployment. The idea that religion would be in any way determinative harks back to earlier sectarian periods in Australian history when religious prejudice in employment practices was notable. Apart from the fact that Equal Employment Opportunity policy and practices forbid discrimination on the basis of religion, most Australians would likely see it as dated unacceptable practice anyway, now eschewed in favour of fairer and more objective criteria related to skills levels and adaptability. Equal employment opportunity is an established feature of Australia as a ‘fair go’ society. In spite of our initial misgivings, ‘Muslim Jobseekers’ turned out to be an entirely suitable and helpful way of identifying a particular set of problems that pertain to the target population. While many factors seemed to impact on the employment wellbeing of this population, rarely did those identified factors cohere consistently around a theme other than the fact that they were Muslim. While the general effects of having a non-English speaking background, being immigrant, refugee, ethnic, female, old, etc. showed up as barriers to employment wellbeing in the ways one would expect, the effects on the Muslim who fitted these categories were more exaggerated than one would expect in the general population. Whether this uncovers a latent tendency among employers and others towards the sectarianism we suppose we have outgrown, or whether there is a prejudicial attitude attached to the status of ‘Muslim’ in the current global context, is beyond the bounds of this study to reveal. It is nonetheless a worrying feature for Australia as a ‘fair go’ society that religious intolerance can be found so easily.
- Subject
- Muslim Jobseekers; Muslim Australians; unemployment; equal employment opportunity; English-speaking competence
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1385350
- Identifier
- uon:32211
- Language
- eng
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