Why do immigrants have longer periods of unemployment? Swiss evidence

Abstract

Immigrant groups, especially those originating from non‐European countries, tend to experience disadvantages in the labour market and to be overrepresented among the recipients of welfare benefits in many European countries. In the public debate, this outcome is sometimes explained with reference to migration‐related factors such as weaker work values than natives (i.e., acceptability of remaining on benefits), smaller and lower quality of informal networks and lower levels of psychological well‐being. Indeed, we find that these factors significantly influence unemployment duration in the expected direction. However, they explain only a small share of the overall disadvantage that some immigrant groups experience. We conclude that at least some of the large differences we observed in unemployment durations are likely to be due to other factors including discrimination by employers.

Boosting productivity in Switzerland

“…The Migrant Integration Policy Index ranked Switzerland 21 st out of 38 countries in 2014 (Huddleston et al, 2015), especially due to relatively weak anti-discrimination laws. Indeed, migrants suffer longer unemployment periods partly due to discrimination against them (Auer et al, 2016). The employment rate is lower than for natives ( Figure 11), even though it is one of the highest within the OECD.…”

Internal Migration in Spain: Dealing with Multilateral Resistance and Nonlinearites

“…Lamonica and Zagaglia (2013) conclude that economic and demographic factors affect Italians and foreigners differently: first, the demographic situation of the sending regions is proved to be a push factor only for the mobility of the Italian population; and second, while the economic conditions of the sending regions have a much greater impact on the Italians, foreigners are more influenced by better economic conditions in the destination regions. Although dealing with a different topic, Auer et al (2017) find that migration-related factors such as weaker work values or lower quality of informal networks help to explain the overall disadvantage in unemployment duration of immigrants with respect to Swiss nationals. 2.…”

“…Although dealing with a different topic, Auer et al. () find that migration‐related factors such as weaker work values or lower quality of informal networks help to explain the overall disadvantage in unemployment duration of immigrants with respect to Swiss nationals.…”

Compensation or competition: Bias in immigrants' access to active labour market measures

“…We argue that immigrants' labour market disadvantage originates from social distance perceptions, which reflect a graded understanding of immigrants' employability, that is, their compatibility with the host society's labour market (see Ebner & Helbling, ). This employability assessment is driven by sociocultural factors, such as shared culture, language, religion (Auer, Bonoli, & Fossati, ; Hagendoorn, , ; Hagendoorn & Hraba, ), and by the (perceived) distance of the educational and labour market context of the country of origin. When assessing a jobseeker's employability, counsellors in public employment services (PES) anticipate that immigrants will encounter social distance‐driven discrimination (Auer, Bonoli, & Fossati, ; Auer et al, ).…”

“…This employability assessment is driven by sociocultural factors, such as shared culture, language, religion (Auer, Bonoli, & Fossati, ; Hagendoorn, , ; Hagendoorn & Hraba, ), and by the (perceived) distance of the educational and labour market context of the country of origin. When assessing a jobseeker's employability, counsellors in public employment services (PES) anticipate that immigrants will encounter social distance‐driven discrimination (Auer, Bonoli, & Fossati, ; Auer et al, ). Although we do not contest the importance of individual support services provided by caseworkers, we argue that the anticipation of labour market discrimination, combined with a strict evaluation culture of jobcentres, creates strong incentives for caseworkers to follow a competition logic when assigning jobseekers to ALMPs.…”