Campaigners are pushing for a crisis fund to be set up to help members of the Polish community who are three times more likely to be unemployed than the average worker.
A new report has revealed that there is a low take-up of the Jobseekers Allowance among Polish people and that they also struggle with bureaucracy in their attempts to find a job and access benefits.
The Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities said there have been 37,445 national insurance number applications from Poles since 2004, although the economic downturn has seen many returning home.
The report added: "Taken together these findings emphasise the vulnerability of our respondents in terms of poverty in their daily life.
"Needless to say this vulnerability becomes worse as the recession continues, bearing in mind our study has also highlighted that almost half of respondents have dependants living in Northern Ireland and half are married."
Around a fifth of those asked were unemployed, almost three times higher than the Northern Ireland unemployment rate of 6.7% for the period April to June 2009.
This shows members of the Polish community are three times more likely than the Northern Ireland average to be unemployed, the report added.
It said extreme poverty will hit Poles if the economic downturn continues and called for action to combat child poverty.
There are also difficulties having qualifications recognised.
"The comments made by respondents show the real frustration of not being able to use their acquired qualifications," it said.
"This has been an existing issue for those people coming to Northern Ireland to work but is even more acute now in the economic downturn."
Recommendations included:
- The OFMDFM should create a crisis fund to assist workers made unemployed who are unable to access public funds.
- The Department for Employment and Learning should establish training courses including English for speakers of other languages.
- There should be bi-lingual benefits advisors to allow migrant workers better access to support and assistance in finding new employment and skills.
- DEL must work to improve qualifications recognition under the European Directive on Qualifications.
The report said: "This is urgently needed during the economic downturn not only to assist migrant workers but also to unlock and use these skills to help in the recovery of the local economy."
It also urged DEL to ensure European laws on temporary agency workers were introduced in Northern Ireland as soon as possible to ensure equal treatment.
The report said the OFMDFM should publish its Cohesion, Sharing and Integration Strategy as soon as possible.
© Press Association