This paper investigates whether the employment of immigrant workers affects the performance of firms in their export markets when they are facing an increase in import competition. Exploiting the surge of Chinese imports following its accession to the World Trade Organization and using a sample of French manufacturing exporters from 2002 to 2015, we find that an increase in the growth rate of Chinese imports in a market has a negative effect on both the survival probability of firms and the growth rate of sales on that market. This negative effect on firm performance is mitigated by the employment of immigrant workers.