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Employer attitudes towards refugee immigrants: Findings from a Swedish survey
Author(s) -
LUNDBORG Per,
SKEDINGER Per
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
international labour review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.433
H-Index - 46
eISSN - 1564-913X
pISSN - 0020-7780
DOI - 10.1111/ilr.12026
Subject(s) - refugee , payroll , immigration , demographic economics , labour economics , wage , obstacle , business , scale (ratio) , job loss , unemployment , economics , political science , economic growth , physics , accounting , quantum mechanics , law
Based on a large‐scale survey of Swedish firms, the authors identify significant heterogeneity in their attitudes towards refugee hiring, job performance, wage setting and discrimination, though experience of employing refugees reduces negative attitudes. Firms’ reasons for discontinuing their employment of refugees are not related to discrimination by staff or customers, but rather to refugees’ suboptimal job performance. While the majority of firms do not regard the collectively agreed minimum wages as an important obstacle to the hiring of refugees, firms with a large share of refugees on the payroll report that reducing those wage rates would enhance employment substantially.