‘Flexible’ workers for ‘flexible’ jobs? The labour market function of A8 migrant labour in the UK

Abstract

There is considerable academic and policy interest in how immigrants fare in the labour market of their host economy. This research is situated within these debates and explores the nexus between migrant labour and segmented labour markets. Specifically the analysis focuses on East-Central Europeans in Britain: a sizeable cohort of largely economic and recent migrants. A large quantity of interviews with low-wage employers and recruiters is used to examine the role served by East-Central European migrant labour in the UK labour market, to question whether this function is distinct from conventional understandings of the function of migrant labour and to explore how employer practices and other processes 'produce' these employment relations. Based on the findings from this approach, an argument is developed which contends that the ready availability of a well perceived cohort of migrant labour has sustained and extended flexible labour market structures towards the bottom end of the labour market.

Fuelling displacement and labour market segmentation in low-skilled jobs? Insights from a local study of migrant and student employment

“…In theory, this emphasis should help individuals with no/low qualifications who are over-represented amongst the unemployed to find employment, but there is evidence that some employers are reluctant to recruit the longer-term unemployed, using duration of unemployment as an indicator of lack of motivation/desire to work (Devins and Hogarth, 2005). There is considerable evidence from research involving employers that migrants are perceived to be 'good' workers, whose positive attributes are that they are hard-working, reliable and flexible (see Lloyd et al, 2008;Danson and Gilmore, 2009;MacKenzie and Forde, 2009;Thompson et al, 2013;McCollum and Findlay, 2015).…”

Liquid migration, grounded lives: considerations about future mobility and settlement among Polish and Spanish migrants in Norway

“…In migration studies, theories of labour market liberalisations have to a large extent been used in analyses of how migrants fit into the labour markets of receiving countries (Friberg 2012a(Friberg , 2012bMcCollum and Findlay 2015). Analyses of the effects of labour market segmentation in migrants' countries of origin have predominantly focused on links with emigration, rather than on considerations about return migration (for an exception, see Cieslik 2011).…”

New insights into informal migrant employment: Hand car washes in a mid-sized English city

“…Much of the literature examines the contention that employers use migrant labour because they cannot find suitable domestic labour and that therefore 'labour shortages' and indeed migrant labour markets are culturally, economically and socially constructed. Critical evaluation of these constructions focuses on migrant labour labelled by employers as 'good workers' who are 'better motivated' and more likely than indigenous labour to accept poor pay and precarious working conditions (Findlay and McCollum, 2013;McCollum and Findlay, 2015;Ruhs and Anderson, 2010). That is, employers prefer to engage precarious workers in the formal or informal economy to enhance workforce flexibility and promote competitiveness which reduces wages to levels which only migrants are likely to accept (Standing, 2014: 176).…”