College-educated migrants arriving in Italy face one of the harshest job markets in Europe. Compared to natives with similar qualifications, migrants are overqualified, underpaid, and underemployed. As a doctor from Venezuela learned, landing steady employment even in a field with shortages can be a long struggle.
High language requirements, a one-size integration policy, and discrimination. Despite the need for labour, landing a job in Sweden has become a hurdle race for college-educated migrants, a new joint investigation with Lighthouse Reports shows.
“During the third week of the first Covid-19 lockdown, we ran out of the little food we had. We spent two days on empty stomachs and this forced me to join a group of children from my village who were going to pan for gold along Odzi River. I have not stopped since then,” she said.
When talking about diversity in the newsroom, the issue of class is usually the last to be mentioned, or not mentioned at all.
For many Nepali women laboring as domestic workers in Gulf countries, raising children from unwanted or unplanned pregnancies is a perpetual struggle.
For the media, it sometimes feels like crossing a border changes who someone is- from someone of inherent value and dignity, to a small point in a large crowd, who’s rights are in turn diluted.
“I tried to bargain with the policemen, but they demanded N500,000 ($770) or nothing. Next, they drove me to my bank branch beside Sheraton Hotel and told me to go and withdraw the money for them.”
Registering on Helpling seems to offer an attractive option for immigrants and others struggling to break into the German work force. But when they face low wages and exploitative conditions, workers are on their own.
