The Left Party wants the municipality of Södertälje to begin anonymizing job applications. The proposal is based on the notion that applicants risk being filtered out due to their names and background—in practice, a suspicion that employers allow ethnicity to influence who is invited for an interview. Previous attempts, however, indicate that the method does not necessarily change who ultimately gets the job.

The Left Party in Södertälje has submitted a motion to the city council to implement anonymous job applications throughout the entire municipal organization. The idea is that information that could reveal, for example, the sound of an applicant’s name or their ethnic background should be concealed from those making the initial selections, since there is suspicion that racist discrimination may occur. This would require the employer to assess candidates more strictly based on their merits.

There is also a clear assumption underlying the proposal about how recruitment works today—that people with, for example, foreign-sounding names risk being rejected despite having the right qualifications. Put plainly, it assumes that employers may choose skin color over competence. The Left Party cites job seekers who claim they are repeatedly denied interviews even though they believe they match employers’ requirements.

Wants to Remove Opportunity to Consider Background

According to SVT, the motion does not provide details on how the anonymization would be carried out in practice or for how long it should be maintained during the recruitment process. Sooner or later, the employer will reasonably have to learn who the applicant is.

The Left Party’s group leader, Linda Sjögren, was also asked if details such as name, gender, and age could, in some situations, benefit the applicant.

– Maybe it shouldn’t be to anyone’s advantage—that everyone should apply on equal terms, she replied.

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The proposal can thus be described as an attempt to eliminate the possibility of discrimination even before a candidate meets the employer. At the same time, it means the municipality labels recruiters as people who might otherwise let prejudices, particularly regarding ethnic background, influence selection.

Study Found Differences for Foreign Names

There is research that supports the idea that names can affect the chance of being called to an interview. In a study by the Institute for Futures Studies, over 7,000 equivalent applications were sent to employers in 15 different professions. The results showed that people with foreign-sounding names were more often overlooked in occupations where few employees had a foreign background.

However, the difference decreased as the proportion of employees with foreign backgrounds increased. When the share reached about half, the researchers could no longer demonstrate corresponding discrimination. This effect was also most pronounced for men with foreign names.

The results provide scant support for discrimination occurring at times but do not suggest that employers generally reject people with foreign backgrounds.

The Advantage Disappeared Before Employment

Anonymous applications are not a new idea. The method has previously been tested in the City of Gothenburg and was later evaluated by the Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy (IFAU).

The experiment showed that women and people with foreign backgrounds had a greater chance of advancing past the first round when employers did not know their identities.

However, by the end of the recruitment process, the outcomes looked different. Women still had a greater chance of actually being offered a position, while a similar increase was not observed for people with foreign backgrounds.

This raises the question of whether anonymization mainly shifts the stage in the recruitment process where potential disparities occur. Once candidates are called to interview, it is no longer possible to hide who the job seeker is.

The method has also been criticized by recruiters for making the process more time-consuming and depriving employers of information otherwise used to form a complete picture of the applicant, where foreign background may be a relevant factor depending on things like language skills, values, and more. The opportunity to check for a criminal background also disappears with anonymization.

Despite these objections, the Left Party believes that Södertälje should try the model to reduce the risk of racist discrimination and, according to the party, give more people the opportunity to compete for municipal jobs on equal terms.

Södertälje has the highest proportion of foreign-born residents in Sweden, 44 percent. If people with both parents born abroad are included, the figure rises to 60.5 percent, making native Swedes a minority in the city.