TY - JOUR AU - Andersson,Fredrik AU - García-Pérez,Mónica AU - Haltiwanger,John C. AU - McCue,Kristin AU - Sanders,Seth TI - Workplace Concentration of Immigrants JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 16544 PY - 2010 Y2 - November 2010 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w16544 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w16544.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Fredrik Andersson Economics Department The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency 250 E Street, SW Washington, DC 20219 Tel: (202) 874-5089 Fax: (202) 874-5394 E-Mail: Fredrik.Andersson@occ.treas.gov Monica Garcia-Perez St. Cloud State University Dept. Economics SH354 720 4th Ave S St Cloud, MN 56301 E-Mail: migarciaperez@stcloudstate.edu John C. Haltiwanger Department of Economics University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 Tel: 301/405-3504 Fax: 301/405-3542 E-Mail: haltiwan@econ.umd.edu Kristin McCue U.S. Census Bureau CES/2K130E 4600 Silver Hill Rd Washington DC 20233-6300 Tel: 301-763-1835 Fax: 301-457-1235 E-Mail: Kristin.McCue@census.gov Seth Sanders Department of Economics and Sanford School of Public Policy Duke University, Durham, NC 27708 E-Mail: seth.sanders@duke.edu AB - To what extent do immigrants and the native-born work in separate workplaces? Do worker and firm characteristics explain the degree of workplace concentration? We explore these questions using a matched employer-employee database that extensively covers employers in selected MSAs. We find that immigrants are much more likely to have immigrant coworkers than are natives, and are particularly likely to work with their compatriots. We find much higher levels of concentration for small businesses than for large ones, that concentration varies substantially across industries, and that concentration is particularly high among immigrants with limited English skills. We also find evidence that neighborhood job networks are strongly positively associated with concentration. The effects of networks and language remain strong when type is defined by country of origin rather than simply immigrant status. The importance of these factors varies by immigrant country of origin—for example, not speaking English well has a particularly strong association with concentration for immigrants from Asian countries. Controlling for differences across MSAs, we find that observable employer and employee characteristics account for almost half of the difference between immigrants and natives in the likelihood of having immigrant coworkers, with differences in industry, residential segregation and English speaking skills being the most important factors. ER -