Foreign Experience Discount
RCTReview
Skilled immigrants arriving under point-based immigration systems experience persistent labor market disadvantages because host-country employers heavily discount job experience acquired in foreign countries compared to host-country experience.
Picture this
Think of a driver's license from a foreign country. Even if a driver has navigated roads for years abroad, local testing officials do not know the traffic rules or driving culture of that driver's hometown, so they treat the driver as a beginner and require local road test experience before trusting their skills.
What the evidence says
Resumes with foreign qualifications and foreign experience received a 6.0% callback rate compared to 15.7% for native Canadian resumes. Adding one domestic Canadian job increased callback rates from 6.0% to 8.5%, while replacing all foreign experience with Canadian experience raised callback rates to 11.0% (p < 0.01).
- Who was studied
- N = 12,910 resumes submitted to 3,225 job postings across 20 occupations in Toronto and Montreal, Canada (human job applicants aged 25-39).
- How
- Randomized field experiment / resume audit study submitting four mock resumes per employer, systematically varying foreign versus domestic work experience while holding job descriptions identical.
What to do
Establish standardized global work experience equivalency frameworks and subsidized bridge internships to help skilled immigrants obtain initial host-country work experience.
From the source
"Among resumes with foreign names and foreign education, the callback rate climbs from 6.0 percent to 8.5 percent by listing just one previous job with a company located inside Canada rather than outside. Listing all job experience with companies located inside Canada leads to the callback rate increasing further to 11.0 percent."
2f1d6051-ac22-4384-a076-c1bbe1ab4f8b-Why Do Skilled Immigrants Struggle in the Labor Market-.pdf