If a job applicant fulfils the formal requirements for a job, how do managers in Swedish companies think they themselves would perform?affected by the candidate's name, ethnicity, language and religion? Some aspects of the Järvaveckan survey stand out: A clear majority reacts not negatively on names that are foreign-sounding. But almost nine in ten would be negatively affected if the candidate speak poor Swedish. And a large proportion would react negatively if the person has religious or cultural dress, Muslim faith or whether the candidate speaks fluent Swedish with a suburban accent. The latter three pose challenges to ongoing efforts to promote integration in Swedish workplaces.
Managers' conscious attitudes
Järvaveckan has investigated the attitudes of managers regarding the name, ethnicity, religion and language of job applicants. The starting point is that the candidate fulfils the formal requirements for the job. How do managers in Swedish companies think they react to the candidate's name, ethnicity, religion and language? The survey shows interesting results in terms of managers' conscious attitudes.
Name
In the vast majority of cases, managers state ”No, it does not matter” when it comes to names. 65 % answer this when it comes to names that are African sounding and Swedish sounding names. 68 % answers it when it comes to Middle Eastern-sounding names and 71 % for Western-sounding. However, just over 20 % say that Middle Eastern-sounding and African-sounding names would affect them negatively. And about 20 % and about 30 % say they would be positively affected if the person has a Western-sounding name or a Swedish-sounding name. In the case of Asian-sounding names, 76 % answer that it would not matter and 78 % answer that in the case of Latin American-sounding names.
religion
More than 70 per cent of managers answer ”No, it doesn't matter” if the candidate were to indicate that they have Christian or Jewish faith. However, almost 40 %s say they would be negatively affected if the candidate is of the Muslim faith, with just over 50 %s answering ”No, it doesn't matter” to this question.
There are 61 % who say that they would be negatively affected by religious and cultural dress (yarmulke, veil, cross, etc.) and only 26 % answer ”No, it doesn't matter” to this question.
(For all questions on name and religion, about 10 %s answered ”don't know/no opinion”).
Language
In terms of language, 86 %s say they would be negatively affected if the candidate spoke poor Swedish and 37 %s would be negatively affected if the candidate spoke fluent Swedish with a suburban accent. However, only 10 % would be negatively affected if the candidate spoke fluent Swedish with a foreign accent.
77 % answer ”No, doesn't matter” for Swedish with a Finnish dialect, 72 % for fluent Swedish with a foreign accent and 65 % for a national Swedish dialect. There are 47 % who answer ”No, doesn't matter” when it comes to fluent Swedish with a suburban dialect.
Approximately 30 %s indicate that the Rikssvensk dialect has a positive effect and 15 %s indicate that Swedish with a Finnish dialect has a positive effect.
About the survey
The survey, which was released at the end of April 2026, was conducted by Järvaveckan, in co-operation with PwC. 500 business leaders, finance and HR managers answered the questions. The companies are divided into companies with 1-9 employees and companies with 10 or more employees, to correspond to the composition of companies in Sweden. One-man businesses are not included in the survey. 64 % of the managers who responded work in companies with 1-9 employees and 36 % work in companies with 10 or more employees. 72 % of the respondents are men and 28 % are women.
Read more about the survey in the Järvaveckan report ”Business: Diversity and Inclusion 2026”. You can also see differences in managers' responses based on whether they work in companies with 1-9 employees or in companies with 10 or more employees, and how women and men respond, as well as how managers in last year's survey responded.
