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Employers’ Language Proficiency Requirements and Hiring of Immigrants

Magnus Carlsson et al.

Journal of Human Resources2026https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.1223-13300r3article
AJG 3ABDC A*
Weight
0.50

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.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.1223-13300r3

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@article{magnus2026,
  title        = {{Employers’ Language Proficiency Requirements and Hiring of Immigrants}},
  author       = {Magnus Carlsson et al.},
  journal      = {Journal of Human Resources},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.1223-13300r3},
}

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Employers’ Language Proficiency Requirements and Hiring of Immigrants

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.