PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Carlsson, Magnus
AU  - Eriksson, Stefan
AU  - Rooth, Dan-Olof
TI  - Employers’ Language Proficiency Requirements and Hiring of Immigrants
AID  - 10.3368/jhr.1223-13300R3
DP  - 2026 Jan 12
TA  - Journal of Human Resources
PG  - 1223-13300R3
4099  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2026/01/07/jhr.1223-13300R3.short
4100  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2026/01/07/jhr.1223-13300R3.full
AB  - 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.