diff --git a/lib/OpenQA/Schema/ResultSet/Jobs.pm b/lib/OpenQA/Schema/ResultSet/Jobs.pm
index 494ddb1f98d..bc2b3a201b1 100644
--- a/lib/OpenQA/Schema/ResultSet/Jobs.pm
+++ b/lib/OpenQA/Schema/ResultSet/Jobs.pm
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@ package OpenQA::Schema::ResultSet::Jobs;
 use Mojo::Base 'DBIx::Class::ResultSet', -signatures;
 use DBIx::Class::Timestamps 'now';
 use Date::Format 'time2str';
+use Encode qw(decode_utf8);
 use File::Basename 'basename';
 use IPC::Run;
 use OpenQA::App;
@@ -112,7 +113,7 @@ sub create_from_settings {
     my ($self, $settings, $scheduled_product_id) = @_;
 
     my %settings = %$settings;
-    my %new_job_args = (TEST => $settings{TEST});
+    my %new_job_args;
 
     my $result_source = $self->result_source;
     my $schema = $result_source->schema;
@@ -171,6 +172,12 @@ sub create_from_settings {
         }
     }
 
+    for my $key (keys %settings) {
+        my $value = $settings{$key};
+        $settings{$key} = decode_utf8 encode_json $value if (ref $value eq 'ARRAY' || ref $value eq 'HASH');
+    }
+    $new_job_args{TEST} = $settings{TEST};
+
     # move important keys from the settings directly to the job
     for my $key (OpenQA::Schema::Result::Jobs::MAIN_SETTINGS) {
         if (my $value = delete $settings{$key}) { $new_job_args{$key} = $value }
diff --git a/t/10-jobs.t b/t/10-jobs.t
index 266a235a43c..b6e0079744e 100644
--- a/t/10-jobs.t
+++ b/t/10-jobs.t
@@ -14,7 +14,6 @@ use FindBin;
 use lib "$FindBin::Bin/lib", "$FindBin::Bin/../external/os-autoinst-common/lib";
 use Mojo::Base -signatures;
 use autodie ':all';
-use Encode;
 use File::Copy;
 use OpenQA::Jobs::Constants;
 use OpenQA::Test::Case;
@@ -26,6 +25,8 @@ use Mojo::JSON qw(decode_json encode_json);
 use OpenQA::Test::Utils qw(perform_minion_jobs);
 use OpenQA::Test::TimeLimit '30';
 
+binmode(STDOUT, ":encoding(UTF-8)");
+
 my $schema_name = OpenQA::Test::Database::generate_schema_name;
 my $schema = OpenQA::Test::Case->new->init_data(
     fixtures_glob => '01-jobs.pl 05-job_modules.pl 06-job_dependencies.pl',
@@ -1006,4 +1007,16 @@ subtest 'get all setting values for a job/key in a sorted array' => sub {
     is_deeply $job_settings->all_values_sorted(99926, 'WORKER_CLASS'), [qw(bar baz foo)], 'all values returned';
 };
 
+subtest 'handling of array and unicode settings' => sub {
+    my %s = %settings;
+    $s{TEST} = 'array_setting_test';
+    $s{ARRAY_SETTING} = ['value1', 'ä', '…'];
+    my $job = _job_create(\%s);
+    my $entry = $job->settings->find({key => 'ARRAY_SETTING'});
+    ok $entry, 'ARRAY_SETTING exists in job settings';
+    my $v = $entry->value;
+    is ref($v), '', 'ARRAY_SETTING value is stored as a string';
+    is $v, '["value1","ä","…"]', 'retrieved correctly encoded JSON array as string';
+};
+
 done_testing();