Earlier this year, Eugene, his wife and their two boys packed their entire lives into seven suitcases. With their home in Kyiv under bombardment by the Russian military, the Ukrainian family fled for Poland. From there, they booked a flight to San Francisco.
For this story, Eugene allowed J. to use his first name only, citing privacy concerns.
The family got here through the U.S. government’s Uniting for Ukraine program, which provides a pathway for Ukrainian citizens fleeing Russia’s invasion to come to the United States and stay for two years. Friends in Contra Costa County were their sponsors, and the family, including a 12-year-old and 7-year-old, settled in Oakley.
But soon enough, Eugene began experiencing the barriers facing refugees in securing employment despite having high levels of education or experience.
He sought out a project engineering position at a technology company, aiming to incorporate skills he had developed while working for more than 15 years in Kyiv. He said he sent out more than 1,000 resumes for positions advertised on online job boards, Craigslist and other resources — all to no avail.
Then his wife came across a job-search accelerator program. Within a short time, Eugene had secured a position as a test technician and support engineer at a company that makes video cameras for cars and robots.
Having the job, he said, has instilled in him confidence about the decision to leave war-torn Ukraine and begin life here anew.
“I want to live right now, and I want to be in a safe place and give my kids a future and opportunity,” Eugene, 44, said in an interview for this article.
With his new job, that now seems possible.
Eugene is one of 21 refugees who’ve recently received support from a career search program run by two Jewish nonprofits in the Bay Area.
Launched in August, the accelerator program — facilitated by Jewish Vocational Service and Jewish Family and Community Services East Bay — provides job training, placement and search support for refugees from Ukraine and Afghanistan, many of whom have settled in the Bay Area. The graduation for the inaugural, three-week cohort was held Sept. 8.
Though most of the refugees in the program are not Jewish, the work is consistent with JVS’ historical efforts of providing employment support to Jewish emigres from the former Soviet Union, said Bekka Rosenbaum, chief strategy officer at JVS.
“The history of what we were founded for is specifically working with refugees,” Rosenbaum said. “They face some of the biggest barriers to employment in the country.”
The new job accelerator initiative builds on a longstanding partnership between JVS and JFCS East Bay while incorporating tools from JVS’ already-successful Job Search Accelerator — an online, data-driven program primarily designed for tech-bound professionals.
While providing job search support specifically to refugees from Ukraine and Afghanistan is new territory for both agencies, the work is in extremely high demand. More than 270,000 Ukrainians have been admitted to the U.S. since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 — and a significant number of them have come via Uniting for Ukraine. Moreover, more than 78,000 Afghans have been resettled in the U.S. since the American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
The conflict in Ukraine, coupled with a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, has led the U.S. to increase the number of refugees allowed entry.
Asylum seekers coming from those two countries are often highly educated, Rosenbaum said, which sets them apart from populations ordinarily served by JVS’ career accelerator services who lack four-year degrees. Many of the current asylum seekers come with bachelor’s or master’s degrees, or even higher levels of education.
“They’re really looking for, basically, connections,” Rosenbaum said. “As we all know, networking is a huge part of the job search.”
Approximately four months ago, Bahir Shojai left behind an upper-class life in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, and went with his wife and four children to Qatar. They were prompted by the re-emergence of the Taliban after the U.S. withdrawal. From Qatar, the family relocated to Brentwood in Contra Costa County.
In his home country, Shojai worked for 18 years for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, and as part of his job, he was a translator for news reporters covering the 20-year, U.S.-led war. But living in the Bay Area, he’s had a difficult time finding ways to apply his job experience. He thinks something in human resources would be appropriate.
The accelerator program doesn’t necessarily lead to a job for everyone. Shojai said the experience of applying for work in the U.S. is dramatically different than in Afghanistan, and while the accelerator was useful for learning how to format his resume, present himself during a job interview and market his skill set to a potential employer, the reality is that finding work is tough for somebody in his shoes.
Though he’s faced setbacks, Shojai is optimistic he’ll find work and be able to provide for his family.
Asked if he hoped to return to Afghanistan one day, he said he saw little future in a country where corruption is rampant, where women are confined to their homes and where the current leadership is backward-looking.
“My country is in a difficult situation. We are not crying, you cannot see the tears, but our hearts are broken,” he said. “We hope for the best.”