Researchers Sophie Bilong and Frédéric Salin explain, in an interview to “world”, that in France the jobs of the exiles are rather precarious, unstable and poorly paid.
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Sophie Bilong, researcher associated with the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI), and Frédéric Salin, PhD student at IRIS-EHESS, published, in February, a study on “the use of refugees: Professional trajectories to business recruitment policies “. In particular, they highlight a professional decommissioning phenomenon.
You have done work on the professional integration of refugees. Today, what are the main brakes?
Sophie Bilong: the obstacles to access to quality jobs refer to the control of the French language, to the question of the recognition of diplomas and the skills and the fact that many jobs, like those of the function public or regulated professions, impose a French diploma or French nationality. Regarding the control of the language, the number of hours of French courses provided by OFII [French Office for Immigration and Integration] has increased, but this is only proposed once that people are recognized as refugees. It would be more relevant for people to begin French classes upon asylum application. There is also a pedagogy problem: language groups are very heterogeneous and put people in a passive learning situation while associations offer French courses in immersion in the workplace.
Frédéric Salin: French courses are not thought of as a public service. The competition of training organizations lowers their quality and purpose is not taking into account training needs. For example, the level needed for the recovery of studies is the [advanced level] while the Linguistic policies of the OFII mainly target the level A1 [discovery level].
You highlight. A professional decommissioning phenomenon of refugees …
f. S.: By relying on the Elipa2 survey, we observe a strong worker of people in exile, regardless of their socio-professional category in their country of origin. We see that there is a concentration in the construction, building or hotel-restaurant sectors, low pay levels and precarious working conditions with a lot of CDD.
s. B.: We have identified three factors that can explain this decommissioning. First, to get a job that corresponds to the one we occupied in his country, it takes time, gold, asylum seekers undergo long inactivity before being in the urgency of looking for a job, once recognized refugee status. This explains the very fast choice of a job that does not correspond to their qualifications. The second point is that, to find a job that corresponds to its qualifications, it takes information, control the language and have financial resources. Finally, the diplomas recognition system is stammering and unknown to employers.
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