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This paper aims to illuminate the deteriorating situation of immigrants in the Swedish labour market. Two questions are in focus. First, is the pattern of a deteriorating labour market situation and increased difficulty entering the economy of the host country applicable to all immigrants? Second, are immigrants more vulnerable to the state of the economy than natives? Large samples of immigrant women and immigrant men as well as large samples of native men and women for the period 1978 to 1999 are studied by observing annual earnings. Low annual earnings signal a weak labour market attachment. The results show that while earnings of foreign-born relative to natives deteriorated for less-privileged immigrants, this was not the case for young adults originating from the north-western part of Europe and North America. In addition, there were no indications of newer immigrants of such origins faring worse than their peers who had arrived earlier when observed during the same number of years since immigration. In contrast, earnings of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and countries outside Europe, who arrived during the first part of the 1980s, were lower than for their counterparts who had arrived earlier. Non-European immigrants who arrived during the first half of the 1980s had earnings in the mid-1990s that were remarkably low. Less-privileged immigrants are more vulnerable than natives to the state of the economy as measured by the unemployment rate. Recently arrived immigrants are more vulnerable to the state of the economy and some signs indicate vulnerability weakens by year since immigration. Thus, a low unemployment rate is relatively more important for categories of immigrants that are not in a privileged situation in the host country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]