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We seek to understand why immigrants encounter labor market integration difficulties and thus propose a model that combines ethnic and occupational rankings to predict which candidates employers will favor for particular occupations (a matching hierarchies model). In a Swiss survey experiment, we found that employers' evaluations of non-natives follow socio-cultural distance perceptions and that a non-native background is a disadvantage mainly in high-skilled occupations. In low-skilled occupations, having an immigrant background is less detrimental. In elucidating disadvantage patterns, we conclude that it is important to consider contextual factors (occupational hierarchies) that may change the nature of nationality-based discrimination.

This article investigates how employers value recommendations from the public employment service (PES) compared to recommendations from a social contact for their hiring decision. The importance of social contacts in the labour market creates inequality by putting those with a weak social network at a disadvantage. It is therefore important to know if public agencies acting as labour market intermediaries (LMI) can compensate for this disadvantage. This question is investigated by means of a factorial survey experiment conducted among Swiss human resources professionals. The results demonstrate that employers value recommendations from social contacts as well as the PES. However, the latter is not able to fully substitute for the effect of social networks.

In the wake of the recent increase in the inflows of refugees to Europe, governments have made considerable investments in public policies aimed at facilitating the labour market integration of refugees. Despite these efforts, the labour market participation of refugees remains low. This situation raises the question of whether employers actually appreciate these public policies and whether refugees’ participation in specific active labour market policies (ALMPs), such as work practice or wage subsidies, increases their likelihood of being hired. In this article, we take a novel approach and combine employers’ evaluations of specific ALMPs with their attitudes towards refugees. We argue that these labour market policies can only be successful when employers hold positive attitudes towards refugees in the first place. We investigate this question by means of a factorial survey experiment with employers in Austria, Germany and Sweden. Our results show that, indeed, employers’ evaluations of fictional refugee candidates who participated in ALMPs are influenced by their attitudes towards this group. Participation in these policy measures is regarded positively only by those employers who already hold positive attitudes towards refugees.