It's hard enough for migrants and refugees to settle in a new country - but when they can't find work because they lack local experience or have a foreign sounding name, it's all the more difficult.
A survey by refugee and migrant resettlement agency AMES Australia canvased 357 migrant and refugee job seekers in Hume and Dandenong in Victoria, and Bankstown and Auburn in Sydney.
Those areas are significant as they have unemployment rates of about 7.2 per cent, which is significantly higher than the national adult jobless rate of 5.6 per cent.
The areas mentioned also have high populations of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) people.
Sudanese migrant Tsigeweni Gebresilasie was one of the women surveyed. She arrived in Australia in 2011.
Ms Gebresilasie studied English at TAFE and completed a hospitality course. But said still, no work was forthcoming.
"Six months after I got my certificate, I still hadn't got a job," she said.
"Every month I applied for 20 jobs."
Ms Gebresilasie has also completed an aged care course and is training with AMES Australia to try and find a job in the sector.
"(It's about) helping people, and making them happy," she said.
21 per cent of people surveyed said not securing an interview at all was the hardest barrier, while 89 per cent said recruitment processes did not give employers an understanding of the job seeker's ability.
65 per cent of job seekers had applied for more than 100 jobs since arriving in Australia.
"I think migrants bring a lot of strength and resilience with them," AMES Australia's Laurie Nowell said.
"They have to be strong and resilient to move to another country, and they have enormous capacities and qualities and I think employers could do well to recognise some of these things."
