Refugee Employment Setback
I last wrote about the new job for the husband/father in our most recent refugee family. Unfortunately the job did not stick.
The company that was hiring brought in a large number of people to begin employment at the same time. During the training day, our hopeful employee was permitted to complete the day, but was not invited back.
The unfortunate part of the story is that he was not told directly that he could not return. My wife met him that evening to take him shopping and found him to be very happy to have a job and excited to be going back the next day. She had to break the news that he did not pass the test. Not a nice situation to be in. He went from a state of excitement to rather depressed in a matter of seconds.
According to the employer his English language ability was too low. There were others with poor English, perhaps worse, but they had more work experience. So the combination of low English and no work experience in the U.S. worked against him in this case.
While this is not the situation we would like, it’s also not unheard of. It is difficult for employers when communication is not easy. I cannot fault that perspective. Generally, since the jobs offered to refugees are pretty low skill, we can sometimes overcome the obstacle by providing an interpreter during training. In this case the company had enough other qualified options available.
Finding employment is always the last big issue. We’ve found jobs that turn into careers for our refugees. And, we’ve had jobs last very short times, for a variety of different reasons. In that case we try to continue helping out, working to overcome the problems if possible. Eventually everyone gets the right job where they can excel and take care of their family. It’s a matter of time.
