From barriers to breakthroughs: how skilled migrants navigate workplace integration

Skilled migrants from non-English-speaking backgrounds frequently experience underemployment and skill underutilisation despite entering host countries with strong qualifications. Existing research primarily interrogates these barriers, often portraying migrants as passive recipients of disadvantage, while giving limited attention to how these skilled workers mobilise agency within constrained opportunity structures. Drawing on 105 interviews with skilled migrants from Vietnam, China, Indonesia, Jordan, and Iran and 24 Australian recruiters, this study adopts an interdisciplinary lens combining human capital, social identity, and social capital theories with the Intelligent Career Framework. Findings show that migrants actively mobilise human, social, motivational, and cultural capital to navigate interconnected barriers, highlighting cultural capital as a distinct yet underexamined career resource influencing employability outcomes. The paper extends the Intelligent Career Framework by incorporating cultural capital and embedding it within micro-meso-macro HRM contexts, offering new insight into fairness-equity tensions and inclusive talent management. Practical implications are offered for organisations, HR practitioners and policymakers seeking to support equitable workplace integration.