Authors

• Jopasin, Esther Nzungwa (University of Jyväskylä)

Keywords

employment, employment services, immigrants, labour market, language skills, minority groups, prejudice, trust

Abstract

The survey charted the views of employees of Finnish Public Employment and Business Services (TE Services) on the significance of immigrants' language skills from the viewpoint of job seeking and customer service. The survey focused on the immigrants' Finnish and Swedish language skills.

First, the respondents were asked about their usual work tasks (e.g. whether they provided services personally, on the phone, online etc. and how often), how often they served immigrant clients and what languages they used with immigrant clients. Several statements on immigrants and customer service were presented next, for example, whether the respondents thought it would be more efficient if immigrant clients' services were provided by someone who speaks their language, whether they changed the way they spoke when serving immigrant clients, and whether they thought the work experience or educational degrees the immigrant clients had gained abroad could be trusted. The survey also included imaginary customer service situations where immigrant clients were served, and the respondents were asked whether they agreed with the conclusions described in these situations. Finally, the respondents were asked to evaluate the language skills of immigrant clients based on their experiences and to compare the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) proficiency levels (A1-C2) to the skill levels in the YKI test (National Certificate of Language Proficiency).

Background variables included when the respondent had filled out the survey (date), as well as the respondent's gender, age group, level of education, job title, mother tongue, and region where the respondent's workplace was located.