The question of discrimination: Skilled migrants' access to Australian employment

Following a decade of increasing non English-speaking background (NESB) migration to Australia, including the migration of unprecedented levels of NESB professionals, this article examines two recent studies which report cases of direct and indirect labour market discrimination. The first relates to qualifications recognition for migrant doctors. Key findings include a growing trend to federal government intervention (in alliance with the medical professional bodies) to limit the entry and registration of migrant doctors, as well as the potential for English language ability to negatively impact on pre-registration examination outcomes. The second study concerns labour market outcomes achieved by an elite sample of Australia's skilled migration programme - migrant engineers of prime workforce age and advanced level English, with fully recognized qualifications pre-migration. Based on longitudinal research conducted over a three year period, this study reports significant evidence of employer bias by region of origin, operating in favour of English-speaking background (ESB) and European origin engineers, compared with those of Asian or Middle Eastern origin. The findings of both studies are contextualized by reference to a 1997 study (based on the Australian census) which reports the employment outcomes obtained by migrant professionals by country of origin, including the length of time taken to achieve professional integration.