Rethinking Labour Migration Channels: the Experience of Latvia from EU Accession to Economic Recession

Abstract

With the onset of recession in the UK in 2008, it was assumed that immigration from other European Union countries would decline. However, this has been shown to not be the case, with the volume of new arrivals from most of the East‐Central European ‘Accession 8’ countries actually increasing. The focus of this paper is Latvia, a country that had a relatively buoyant economy following its accession to the European Union in 2004 but that now has one of the highest unemployment and emigration rates in Europe. Interviews carried out with labour providers, policymakers, and employers are used to examine the labour migration channels that reflect and structure labour migration flows from Latvia and how these have evolved in the period between accession and recession. The findings indicate that intermediaries such as labour providers, the state, and informal social networks exert considerable influence on the nature of labour migration flows and that the relative importance of these channels displays significant temporal and spatial variations. This research represents an original contribution to the literature on labour migration channels by focusing on movements from a low‐wage to higher‐wage economy in the context of the introduction of free movement of labour between Eastern and Western Europe and the later onset of severe global recession. These findings are of relevance to how labour market channels are theorised and suggest that analysts need to be sensitive to how the function served by intermediaries, and their influence on migration systems, evolves over time and across space. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Migration and Demographic Change

“…It is to this arena that several of the research papers in this volume contribute new insights. McCollum et al (2013) argue that a range of international channels exist through which employers and their agents (variously described as gangmasters, labour providers, and recruitment firms) selectively filter the pool of potential migrants and shape the nature of migration flows through recruitment and employment practices that are not only economically but also socially and culturally constructed . The merits and weaknesses of this perspective are evaluated in this volume by Scott (2013).…”

Migration and the Employer Perspective: Pitfalls and Potentials for a Future Research Agenda

“…The discussion so far has been about controlling and managing workers in general. The literature, however, suggests that, in low‐wage industries at least, migrant workers appear to make better workers (Findlay and McCollum, ; MacKenzie and Forde, ; McCollum et al, ; Scott, , ; Scott et al ., ; Thompson et al ., ). A large part of this might be because of the way in which the state operates and specifically the way in which migrant and domestic labour is de‐commodified to differing degrees.…”

“…A useful way of conceptualising the role of the recruitment agency, called a gangmaster in the food industry, is to view it as a meso-level 'channelling' mechanism (Findlay and Garrick, 1990;Findlay and Li, 1998;McCollum et al, 2013). Agencies channel in a number of respects.…”

Population geography I

“…This is imperative given trafficking takes many diverse forms across the globe in the varied, albeit potentially interconnected guises of domestic servitude, organ harvesting, and labour and sexual exploitation. Blazek's study is therefore important for emphasising the plurality and the nonlinearity of trafficking processes, as well as bringing into direct question the range of individuals and groups involved in trafficking processes.Second, McCollum and Findlay's (2012) investigation of East-Central European migrants to the UK, their employment conditions in the UK, legislation and policy, and the role of recruitment agencies and employers reveals the instabilities and fluidity of the identification of trafficked persons, and how the conceptual marker(s) can be transformed by changing legal, legislative and structural conditions (see also McCollum and Findlay, 2015;McCollum et al, 2013;Shubin and Findlay, 2014). McCollum and Findlay (2012) note, for example, how unscrupulous activities became less prevalent after the post-2004 accession of A8 countries to the European Union, and reveal that 'A8 migrants have been able to exercise their agency in positive ways ' (p. 46).…”