Highly skilled migrants hope to land a job or career that matches with their qualifications when they arrive in EU countries. However, despite the skills and knowledge they have, some individuals remain unemployed with figures showing an overall immigrant unemployment rate of 5% in the UK.

Not only do migrants face difficulty in securing high-level jobs, but they also struggle to obtain low-paying positions due to their higher level of education. This spiral into unemployment can lead to further barriers including difficulty with integration.

 

The Migrapreneurs project 

Barriers to employment is a key focus within both migrant adult education and Vocational Education and Training (VET). The University of Sheffield aims to support this group in finding employment opportunities with their Erasmus+ funded project ‘Migrapreneurs’.

The Migrapreneurs project developed “Entrepreneurial Journey for Highly Skilled Migrants” training, which has been tested to ensure that it is both theoretically and practically relevant to the target group. A guide entitled "Transferring Your Skills into Self-employment – A Guide for Highly Skilled Migrants” was also created with the aim to help start-ups identify issues they might face.

These tools can be used as learning resources for the project’s partnership countries in the UK, France, Spain and Turkey.

Migrapreneurs have designed these action-orientated tools for participants to easily identicy the concrete steps and actions to ensure business growth. It has also been designed to include peer learning and encourages participants to connect outside of the training programme and to network with other European learners and professionals.

John Kawalek at the University of Sheffield hopes the project will promote entrepreneurship, saying:

“I am confident this project will prove powerful in helping members of our migrant communities to develop and grow their own businesses, thereby enhancing their opportunities.”

 

Impact of VET: skills and motivation

The overall objective of the Migrapreneurs project will be to better utilise the expertise that highly skilled migrants bring into partner countries by fostering an entrepreneurial mind set as well as the required skill set. The University of Sheffield aims to see more start-ups grow and be innovative, especially with a future outlook to using the migrants' existing advanced skill sets to fuel European level expansion of these businesses.

Carolyn Usher at the University of Sheffield says:

“The projects are a great way to make links across Europe to share best practice and we look forward to working with and learning from our partner organisations.

One of the migrants who has taken part in our research here in the UK holds a PhD in Syria but has been told she will find it difficult, if not impossible to gain work in her field at that level here in Sheffield. She is therefore looking at starting up a business to give her work which matches her skills.”

The university also hopes to make a wider impact upon communities. Migrapreneurs aims to provide potential start-ups set up by highly skilled migrants with top-quality business training to succeed. This will have a significant impact on local and regional communities by fostering business growth and supporting local economies in areas where migrants are living, which are often more deprived.

Migrapreneurs aims to make local communities more aware of entrepreneurship opportunities and motivate individuals to consider setting up their own business, rather than relying on employment which can be difficult to find.

The research and analysis phase of the project is also anticipated to have a strong impact on both local, regional and national levels. It will enable people in the target group to voice their opinions on current gaps in training, advice, learning provision and raise awareness of the needs of highly skilled migrants in training areas linked to employability and entrepreneurship across the partner countries.

 

The work of the University of Sheffield and other Erasmus+ funded projects are key tools in supporting migrant adult education. Not only will the Migrapreneurs project help boost migrants’ employability, but it will also provide opportunities for these highly skilled migrants to integrate into UK society, build new skills and secure a career that matches their level of education. 

 

The Erasmus+ programme offers many funding opportunities for organisations to help support non-EU migrants in adult learning projects. Discover more about applying for adult education funding on the Erasmus+ UK website.

 

 

 

Erasmus+ is the European Union programme for education, training, youth and sport. The Erasmus+ UK National Agency is a partnership between the British Council and Ecorys UK.

 

 

 

You may also want to read:

Kairos Europe: migrant education, support and integration (blog)

Belfast Met's Community-based ESOL for Refugees and Migrants (blog)

Epsilon Adult Education Programme (resource)