Workers at Jesuit Social Services' (JSS) branch at Flemington's public housing towers have identified a lack of Australian workplace experience and poor language skills as the biggest obstacles preventing African migrants from finding work.

JSS program manager Monica Smyrek said scores of qualified Africans were either unemployed or couldn't find work in their fields and were forced to do menial jobs because they didn't have work experience in Australia.

"You'll find a taxi driver who's got a master's degree or might be working at a petrol station or factory, or so forth because their qualifications weren't recognised in Australia and they have never worked here," she said.

Ms Smyrek said a new program was tackling the African unemployment problem.

More than 70 participants have graduated from the African-Australian Inclusion Program since 2008, going on to work in roles at NAB and other Australian businesses.

Flemington-based youth worker Asha Saleh said other programs were geared towards integration and ensuring the Flemington housing estate wasn't "shut out" from the wider community.

"We take girls who want to be nurses to the Epworth Hospital and to dentists' clinics, and they love getting into the mainstream community and seeing the opportunities available."

But according to African employment expert Omar Farah, racism is to blame for the high unemployment among Africans in Melbourne.

"I know people who have abbreviated their names so they don't sound foreign, and they'd get a call back in a matter of hours. But as soon as they walked into their offices, they were asked if they were who they had claimed to be and employers said they'd call back," he said.

Mr Farah, who runs the Horn Afrik employment agency for Africans, said he believed men from Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti and Ethiopia faced discrimination based on their skin colour due to the "negative connotations" of Africa.

Ms Saleh said young people contributed to the African jobless rate because of soaring numbers of high school drop-outs.

She said many newly arrived African children had poor English or had never been to school before.