Elon Musk is in the news. Again. And this time it is because his company; SpaceX, has been unfair (to say the least) towards refugees and people granted political asylum who were looking for job opportunities at the rockets and spacecraft company. A malpractice as such is a red-flag that deserves to be called out and penalised. And penalised he was, by the U.S. federal prosecutors in the month of August 2023.
The lawsuit holds SpaceX accountable for consistently discouraging qualified and talented asylees and refugees from wanting to become a part of the company. It also accused Musk of declining any and all efforts made by the candidates to be hired on the basis of their citizenship status that presumably violated the Immigration and Nationality Act. This is not something that materialised overnight but rather a practise which had been followed by Musk since 2018.
And this probe into SpaceX’s hiring traditions re-awakened unpleasant memories of its previous offences. A precedent to this incident is the complaint that was lodged against Tesla Inc., the electric vehicle manufacturer. The accusations were that the workers of colour that were working in the company (mostly black) had to tolerate the frequent use of racial slurs on the assembly line at its factory in Fremont, California. Additionally, these workers claim that the company’s managers were slow to respond to instances of graffiti containing hate symbols like swastikas in common areas of the factory. The incidents mentioned here are only two from a bulk of complaints that held Musk and his companies responsible for being prejudiced in their hiring practices. It appears that Musk’s empire has been built on discriminatory hiring practices which ostracised people based on ageism, racism, disability, sexism and the most recent addition; refugees and asylum seekers. Unfortunately SpaceX is not a standalone entity in being found guilty of such practices.
Significant discriminations that refugees have to face
There is a deep-rooted animosity that countries have built towards refugees and migrants in general. For instance, since 2015 there has been a surge in the number of people seeking refuge in Europe due to dire circumstances, and this situation has been labelled as a “crisis”. A description as such has contributed to a negative attitude towards refugees, and more broadly, anyone seen as foreign. Alienating them from the contexts in consideration and making them feel like they don’t belong in the main narrative will ultimately push them to the margins. These negative attitudes involve portraying refugees, migrants, and people from ethnic minority backgrounds as threats to European values, lifestyles, and social norms. A reason that underscores immigration anxiety from the POV of the host country. Economically, they are often framed as “taking our jobs”, being dependent on the welfare system, or costing taxpayers money. These narratives are detrimental and will influence employers’ willingness to embrace diversity in their hiring practices.
While there is an ample amount of discussion that happens centering “why it is important to hire refugees”, most initiatives just end there. Walking the talk is supposedly the difficult part. The global refugee population passed 26 million people in 2022, which means that the number has grown to be much bigger than that by now, especially with the situation in Ukraine. Due to the exceptionally high number of refugees and displaced individuals worldwide, it has become increasingly important for countries to effectively incorporate refugees into their communities. Regrettably, despite the importance of job security as a fundamental step in rebuilding their lives and nurturing a sense of stability in their new host nations, refugees are forced to face significant difficulties in finding meaningful jobs that are financially, psychologically and emotionally fulfilling.
The factors that impede refugee workforce integration occur on three levels, namely institutional, organisational and individual. Institutionally, the obstacles that they have to tackle ranged from immigration rules and policies that favour agendas over the welfare of refugees, organisations that deny recognition of qualifications obtained internationally, gate keeping them from higher paying jobs and social and political stories that depict refugees as unwelcome and burdensome to society.
On an organisational level refugees have to overcome challenges such as government funded programs for refugee employment that choose getting refugees jobs as a quick-fix over ensuring their long-term career success and lower wages for refugees that were often based on employers’ perceptions that overlooked their actual skills and qualifications. Additionally, support organisations that were assigned the task of assisting newcomers with resettlement and workforce integration were often devoid of the ability to comprehend how to identify foreign qualifications and were short of resources to provide quality training and professional development.
The issues that they have to address on an individual level are an entirely different ball game. These struggles encompass things such as challenges in finding employment because of personal characteristics like being a woman or an older person, difficulties in scoring a job due to the lack of proficiency in the local language, circumscribed access to professional connections that could help in finding job opportunities, mental health issues upon arrival which can make it arduous to integrate into the workforce and dilapidated perception of self caused by frustration over foreign qualifications not being acknowledged in the host nation. An interplay of these forces make it that much more challenging for a refugee to permeate the world of employment. Most research indicates that the socio-political environment has a strong impact on these barriers. However, as of recently there has been a development in refugee inclusion in workplaces ensuing the pleas of the UN that urged international companies to align themselves with DEI frameworks.
“Refugees deserve support and solidarity, not closed borders and pushbacks”
Reminds UN chief António Guterres. With a historic high of 110 million people displaced globally, Guterres emphasised the importance of finding more ways to relocate and support their efforts to start anew. And this implies including refugees at all levels, employment being one amongst them.
Therefore, just before the ‘World Refugee Day’ in 2023, 41 multinational companies publicly pledged to facilitate more than 250,000 refugees in Europe, with jobs, required training and connections to work opportunities in June. The companies included Accenture, Adecco, Amazon, Cisco, Genralli, Hilton, ISS, Marriott International, Microsoft, Randstad, Starbucks and The Body Shop. These commitments were made at the Tent European Business Summit where all the companies set different goals for themselves to be implemented and achieved within three years. For instance Amazon has pledged to hire 50,000 refugees, specifically Ukrainian refugee women, across its Europe operations within a three-year period. To assist them in Poland and Germany, Amazon will provide support through its Welcome Door Program, which grants access to various benefits, including the opportunity to connect immigration experts. Amazon did not stop there. They also set a goal to train 10,000 Ukrainians, including refugees, through its ITSkills4U program. This initiative offers both virtual and in-person training in IT and cloud-related skills, provides Amazon Web Services (AWS) certifications, and offers career services. It is designed to lend a helping hand to Ukrainians with limited or extensive tech experience to re-enter the job market. It is a pleasant sight to witness companies proactively offering work or career support to refugees.
However, this support should be equally distributed without any bias or prejudice. A concern that had headlined many news broadcasts in the recent past is how Europe was eager to welcome Ukrainian refugees to their continent as opposed to their reluctant reception of or animosity towards other forcibly displaced refugees from nations such as Syria, Sudan and Afghanistan. This favouritism was duly noted not to belittle the extreme hardships that the victims of Ukraine were being subjected to, but rather to shed light on how pre-existing biases can feed into the structural alignment of aid provided to refugees. As per the patterns recorded, many were of the opinion that Europe was following a double-standard. Most of them were valid complaints. Even Though it goes without saying, it is vital that being inclusive of refugees in workplaces and in all other places in general, should happen without biases. A selective welcome will create more marginalised groups within already marginalised groups and that is the last thing that they should be put through.
(Sandunlekha Ekanayake)