Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

SOFI Working Papers in Labour Economics,
Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for Social Research

No 7/2025: Employers' Language Proficiency Requirements and Hiring of Immigrants

Magnus Carlsson (), Stefan Eriksson () and Dan-Olof Rooth ()
Additional contact information
Magnus Carlsson: Department of Economics and Statistics, Linnaeus University
Stefan Eriksson: Department of Economics, Uppsala University, Postal: Box 513, 751 20 UPPSALA
Dan-Olof Rooth: Swedish Institute for Social Research, Postal: SOFI, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract: Labor markets in advanced economies have undergone substantial change due to globalization, technological improvements, and organizational changes, making language proficiency increasingly important even in less skilled jobs. Has this development led employers to shy away from hiring immigrants with limited host-country language skills? We shed light on this question by conducting a large-scale field experiment, where we introduce common second-language features in immigrants’ resumes. We also conduct employer surveys to interpret our experimental results. Our main finding is that language proficiency has a strong positive effect on being invited to a job interview, even in typical immigrant entry jobs.

Keywords: language proficiency; immigrant hiring; field experiment

JEL-codes: F22; J15; J24

84 pages, May 6, 2025

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