Immigrants in Sweden – Not substitutes for Swedish workers research finds

We evaluate the relationship between immigrant and native employment using the Swedish administrative employer-employee linked LOUISE database. We find that if firms increase employment of immigrant workers by 10 percent, they increase employment of Swedish workers within the same occupation of the immigrants by 1.2-2.8 percent, and they increase employment of Swedish workers within other occupations by 0.5-1.4 percent. We find that immigrant employment changes outside of the firm have very little effect on the firm’s decision to hire Swedish workers. We show that the majority of the within-firm Swedish employment increase is due to an increase in employer changes. We also find some evidence that firms increase employment to nonemployment transitions when they hire immigrant workers, which we interpret as possible job displacement occurrences. We interpret these findings as evidence that immigrants are complements with native workers within their occupations and across other occupations.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at Exploring the relation between immigrants and native workers: new evidence using firms, occupations, and employment flows