Alan Tudge said the government had moved to elevate the systemic unemployment crisis to a key plank of its jobs and immigration policy. Picture: AAP

English-language courses for ­human­itarian refugees will be overhauled as part of a new push to settle half of the new arrivals in regional areas and help them gain employment to lower a “shockingly” high jobless rate.

The move by the Morrison government to address entrenched disadvantage among refugees comes amid calls for big business to do more to bridge the employment gap, with new data showing 77 per cent of refugees were still jobless a year after their arrival.

With only 21 per cent of all refugees taken in under the annual humanitarian stream having any functional level of English, even after accessing up to 510 hours of free language tuition, radical ­reform to the program, including possible English language training in overseas refugee camps, will begin to be trialled in July.

Employment incentives will also be rolled out for refugees to settle­ in regional centres, with more than 70 per cent currently settling in suburban enclaves across Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, which is straining social services.

Acting Immigration Minister and Minister for Population Alan Tudge said the government had moved to elevate the systemic unemployment crisis to a key plank of its jobs and immigration policy, with a target for 50 per cent of ­humanitarian arrivals to be settled in regional centres by 2022.

Mr Tudge said the reforms would go beyond the recent Shergold review that recommended sweeping changes to employment services and English-language skills for the 18,750 refugees entering Australia each year.

Key elements of the reforms will include rolling out trials for English-language courses by July 1, including English tuition classes alongside childcare ser­vices, workplace English classes and the potential for English ­language training in overseas camps to upskill refugees before they arrive.

A new Refugee and Migrant Services Advisory Council, to be headed by distinguished refugee advocate Paris Aristotle and ­private-sector business figures, will engage businesses to drive new training and employment programs and capitalise on the skills of some refugees who includ­e doctors, engineers, teachers and highly skilled professionals who often lack functional English-language skills.

The government will establish an alternative employment services model for refugees in recognition that the government’s Jobactive employment service was not delivering for those who had entered Australia through the humanitarian intake.

In a speech to the Menzies ­Research Centre in Melbourne on Friday, Mr Tudge will say that the unemployment rate is “unacceptable” and in critical areas the outcomes are “getting worse, not better” with the risk that many refugee­s will be cast out to the fringes of society.

Mr Tudge will say that while Australia’s humanitarian program was the most generous on a per-capita basis after Canada, the over-concentration of refugees in some suburbs — such as Fairfield in western Sydney, where 60 per cent of all arrivals to the city have settled — was putting services under pressure and limiting social ­cohesion and integration.

The 2016 census data showed that the unemployment rate of refugees after one year of arriving was 77 per cent, dropping to 38 per cent after three years but still ­remaining high at 22 per cent after a decade.

“Unemployment at this rate is not good enough. Long-term ­welfare dependence is debilitating for anyone, be they a refugee, long-term citizen or anyone else. We have to do better,” Mr Tudge will say.

“Data shows that when identifying reasons for finding it difficult to get a job, close to 60 per cent of humanitarian entrants said ‘my English isn’t good enough yet’.

“There is no other indicator which is as stark.’’

Mr Aristotle said the critical issue for the new advisory council was a commitment to providing employment, recognising that a lack of English language was a major barrier.

“The most important thing about this, and something the governmen­t has acknowledged, is the enormous potential in the ­humanitarian intake,” Mr Aristotle said.

“ There are very high skill levels in professional areas and trade areas and we want to maximise the potential of skills they bring into Australia.

“What we need from business is an openness to engage on these initiatives and be proactive in seeking to assist people into the workforce.’’

The Migration Council of Australia welcomed the government’s focus on ­employment.

“It’s critical that we set people up to succeed and reach their full potential, and getting a job is one of the biggest and most important milestones for refugees in their settlement process,” MCA chief executive Carla Wilshire said.

“We need to see employment as a key part of settlement and a goal from day one. People arrive wanting to contribute and wanting to provide for their families and the onus on us is to find better ways of supporting them to do that.’’