Suitable, Exploitable or Undesirable: Employer Perceptions and Categorisations of Migrant Workers in the Manufacturing Industries of Post-War Central Sweden

Abstract

This article explores how social status and the exploitability of ethnic groups interplays with how employers ascribe skills and suitability to different nationalities through a historical case study of a regional two-tier segment of the Swedish post-war labour market. Drawing on previous research on the connections between social status, skills perceptions and labour market outcomes, the article argues for a more nuanced view where the specific economic and political circumstances play an important part in making employers perceive ethnic groups to be suitable for unskilled or skilled industrial work. The results show that nationalities that initially had a comparatively high social status could quickly lose any labour market privilege in a labour market segment if circumstances made them exploitable at the same time as employers perceived them to lack skills suitable for skilled industrial work.