Tackling Brain Waste: Strategies to Improve the Recognition of Immigrants’ Foreign Qualifications
A new Migration Policy Institute (MPI) report, Tackling Brain Waste: Strategies to Improve the Recognition of Immigrants’ Foreign Qualifications, examines the range of policies immigrant-receiving countries have introduced to improve the recognition of foreign credentials and focuses on strategies to remedy the credentialing gaps that keep many immigrants from fulfilling their professional potential. The report notes that there are issues other than credential recognition at play when it comes to maximizing the skills and experience of immigrant workers. Some immigrants require significant support to fill gaps in their skills, gain local work experience and address other barriers to employment.
There are a number of reasons why barriers to practicing the profession in which foreign workers are trained can arise, among them differences in education and training, language proficiency or employer resistance to hiring a candidate with unfamiliar qualifications.For occupations that require licensing or registration—such as in engineering or health care—examinations, application fees or supervised training requirements can represent additional barriers to entry.
Tags: immigrants, migrants, migration, research