Job search methods and their success : a comparison of immigrants and natives in the UK

Abstract

A major issue in the immigration debate concerns whether immigrants take jobs away from natives. In this paper, we present new evidence on the job search methods used by immigrants, and the success of immigrants relative to natives in gaining employment through the different job search methods, in the UK context. Our main findings are (1) that immigrant job search is less successful than that of natives using all job search methods, (2) that immigrants are at least as likely to gain employment through informal job search methods as via verifiable routes and (3) that the probability of successful job search increases with years since migration. Our findings imply that immigrants may not effectively compete for jobs with natives, which may help to explain why immigration has been found to have little impact on native employment in the UK.