How is finding work challenging for refugees?

A big [challenge] is legal safety. There's a lot of uncertainty on being a displaced person and despite having a piece of paper that tells you you're allowed here to stay - you have the right to work because if a person has a refugee stages, they can work - but people feel very insecure. They feel this can be taken away from me at any time. ‘If I don't find a job, if I don't integrate, it's going to be taken away,’ so this uncertainty on the legality of being in the place, it puts people in a very uncertain territory.

The other one is isolation. The lack of connection. People come here and they don't know anyone and they don't belong to circles. They don't connect with others especially outside their ethnic group. They might know other people, they might come to the UK, they try to make it here because they have a few people they might know, but outside that, there's nothing else. So that lack of connection, again, makes such a huge difference in the lack of reference, lack of encouragement, motivation, inspiration, guidance. They don't have any of this.

Whereas for people that have been here or people from here, there's always there's always someone that acts as a connector, at least as some sort of reference. That's a big one. Then there is the cultural one because of that lack of integration, lack of connection: reading a culture or giving the right signals, these unspoken cues are a big barrier for people for sure. They will not know exactly how to apply for a role, what are the right things that you have to say, how you have to behave, what protocols are expected? And people think a lot about the interview stage and yes, of course that's an important element, but it's like getting to the interview is already a big challenge. You need to follow a lot of procedures in order to do that.