Abstract
Exploiting a large French panel for 1976-2007, we examine the impact of low-educated
immigration on the labour market outcomes of blue-collar natives initially in jobs where
immigrants became overrepresented in the last decades. Immigrant inflows generate
substantial reallocations of natives across locations and occupations. Location movers are
negatively selected while occupation movers are positively selected and move towards better
paid-jobs characterised by less routine tasks. As a result, controlling for composition effects
has an important quantitative impact on the estimated effects of immigration. Low-educated
immigration generally lowers the wages of blue-collar workers, but its impact is
heterogeneous across sectors.