The political economy of recruitment agencies and migrant workers in Europe and beyond

Chris Forde, Robert MacKenzie, Zyama Ciupijus and Gabriella Alberti,  University of Leeds

Employment intermediaries, such as employment agencies, temporary help firms and other ‘brokers’ have a long history of mediating the employment relationship.  The role of employment intermediaries in global migration has been recognised in a range of recent studies, with most attention focusing on the role of temporary employment agencies in placing migrants into work. Temporary employment agencies are one of the key routes used by migrants to access the labour market  (Alberti, 2011; Forde and MacKenzie 2010) and migrants are over-represented in agency work compared to many other groups of workers (Forde and Slater, 2009).  Yet little remains known about the strategies of temporary help agencies in relation to migration. To what extent have agencies adapted their strategies in the light of changing migration patterns, and in what ways do agencies facilitate or impede transitions in the labour market? Furthermore, beyond temporary help agencies, what is the role of other employment intermediaries in migration dynamics? Studies have begun to recognize that the relationship between migrants and employers is mediated by a complex set of intermediaries, beyond the temporary employment agency, covering a wide variety of formal and informal ‘brokers’ in the labour market (MacKenzie and Forde, 2009; Fitzgerald, 2011; Coe et al, 2011). The aim of this paper is to map these ‘new’ intermediaries and develop an understanding of their role in shaping migration outcomes. The paper draws on over 30 qualitative interviews with intermediaries and with migrant workers in the UK, conducted between 2008 and 2012. Some of these intermediaries, notably multinational temporary employment agencies, are not new at all, yet it is clear that they have adapted their strategies in the light of changing migration dynamics. Indeed, a key argument of the paper is that these temporary agencies are playing a key role in migration dynamics and in shaping labour market outcomes for workers. The paper considers a range of other intermediaries playing a role in migration processes, including social enterprises, ‘employers as intermediaries’, and single-person ‘agents’. The paper explores the complex and changing relationship between these intermediaries on the one hand, and migrant workers and employers on the other.