オーストラリア非英語使用市民(Non English Speaking Background)の職探しにおけるハンディキャップ

抄録

The rapid increase of the number of migrants from non English speaking countries ( NESB : Non English Speaking Background) since the eighties has brought the problems of their economic status in Australian up to the surface. In this paper, we discuss the extent to which they are handicapped on each stage of job search due to their linguistical difficulties. We first consider the fact that the unemployment rate of NESB is significantly higher than that of other groups. Our analysis shows that the difference of umemployment rates between them is not caused by factors such as the differences in educational achievement, qualifications on demographical compositions. It is emphasised, rather, that a significant part of their umemployment is due to their English inability. We then discuss the difficulties in getting access to information on job vacancies that the job seeker may suffer from if he/she cannot manage English sufficiently in Australia. The examination of preceding studies and the results of our field research elucidate the seriousness of this problem among NESB. We next focus on the fact that the distribution of the employment of NESB among industriesis heavily distorted toward the manufacturing sector. The results of some surveys and statistical data strongly indicate that it is because of less serious requirement with language capability in the sector.In order to confirm this argument, we apply an econometric analysis to a micro-data set which was collected at a manufacturing company. The analsis shows that ethnic factors such as nationality, language and birth place do not have significant roles in obtaining jobs in that company at all. Finally, on the basis of these analysis, we suggest that the importance of improving NESB's English ability need to be more seriously recongnised in making policies to raise their economic and social status.