No Country for Foreigners: an Analysis of Hiring Process in Italian Labor Market

This paper deals with the impact of ethnic origin on individual’s employability, stressing the first stage of the hiring process. We studied whether there is a preference for Italian candidates over foreigners and, if so, whether it depends on gender, type of work, education and/or level of customer contact required. To do so, we collected data through a field experiment carried out in Italy in the period between July 2013 and October 2014. During that period we sent thousands of fictitious résumés, answering to real online job postings. All fictitious candidates live in Rome. Using a probit analysis we studied both first and second generation foreign candidates with different countries of origin to estimate whether these two components make any difference in candidate’s treatment.