Does additional work experience moderate ethnic discrimination in the labour market?

Abstract

Based on employer responses to 6000 job applications, this article tests whether greater work experience lowers discrimination against job applicants of immigrant origin in the Finnish labour market. It does so by comparing the callbacks received in response to two sets of job applications: applications in which applicants of immigrant background had identical work experience as the majority applicant and those in which they had two years’ more experience than the majority candidate. The article further investigates if additional experience elicits more callbacks in jobs in which higher work experience and a vocational diploma are required and when the vacancies are high-skilled. The findings of this empirical investigation suggest the presence of deep-seated ethnic hierarchies in the Finnish labour market. They clearly demonstrate that immigrants’ chances of securing a job interview offer do not significantly change even when they possess substantially greater work experience than their majority counterparts.