Underemployment
Batalova, Fix, and Bachmeier (2016) define underemployment as workplaces that highly skilled persons work in low-skilled jobs requiring moderate or less on-the-job training. Low skilled jobs typically require a high school diploma or less, for example, personal-care aides, housekeepers, and truck drivers. Research findings show that 40% of African immigrants and 36% of the US born white population aged 25-40 have at least a bachelor’s degree (Tesfai, 2017). But with regard to employment, African immigrants are disproportionality underemployed and continue to be part of the population segment that is significantly underemployed (Hailu, Mendoza, Lahman, & Richard, 2012). Whereas US experienced significant decrease in underemployment between 2010 and 2019, there still exists disparity based on race and country of birth (Batalova et al., 2016; Nunn, Parsons, & Shambaugh, 2019). In a recent annual report, America’s Health Rankings (2019) revealed 11.6% and 6.1% underemployment rate among black adults and white adults, consequently. It has also been suggested that African Immigrants experience more occupational segregation than other races (Tesfai, & Thomas, 2020).
Despite the fact that academic credentials are supposed to help secure employment opportunities, this has not always been the case with African immigrants. Highly skilled immigrants often find it hard to transfer their knowledge from home country to the United States (Batalova et al., 2016). A qualitative study with immigrants describes frustration felt by African immigrants when their foreign education and work experience fail to help them secure descent jobs (Baran, Valcea, Porter, & Gallagher, 2018). Evidence shows that of the total number of unemployed people in the USA, foreign born and educated immigrants account for 60% (Batalova et al., 2016). Consequently, immigrants experience perceived broken promises and pleasant surprises.
Studies show that there many factors that account for this unemployment. It is appalling that immigrants are discriminated based on accent, rather than looking at the skills and qualifications required for the advertised positions (Hosoda, 2016). Also, it is unfortunate that language fluency and cultural knowledge indirectly limit immigrants’ acquisition of jobs (Guerrero & Rothstein, 2012). Accordingly, employers tend to connect and hire individuals that exhibit language and cultural competency.
In their study, Lane and Lee (2018) provide four lived experiences of immigrant workers: loss of community; lack of voice; frustration with U.S. educational and regulatory systems; and pride in their vocation. Immigrants are frustrated when educational credentials seem not to help them navigate the US system to secure good jobs. Loss of community also points to frustrations of working in an unfamiliar territory surrounded by strangers. Immigrants lack the social support to lean on. Immigrants feel they are on island with individuals or neighbors who seem not to understand their plight. Lack of voice is felt because accent or language barrier make it hard to express concerns and frustrations (Hosoda, 2016). As much as majority of immigrants from Anglophone countries are fluent in written and spoken English, there is the issue of assent. In addition, immigrants suffer from imperfect transferability and queuing approach (Tesfai, 2019). That is, employers discount immigrants’ educational qualifications and work experience; and rank applicants on racial ‘hierarchy’ rather than academic qualifications.