Informalisation, labour migrants and irregular migrants: low wage labour intensive work and the restructuring of the Swedish labour market

Abstract

Studies of migrant labour in the Swedish labour market have generally focused on those having received permanent residence permission as refugees or through family re-unification legislation. This mirrors a situation in which labour migration has been quite restrictive in Sweden. Starting with a new labour migration reform in 2008, this is dramatically changing.

The aim is to study the situation of labour migrants and irregular migrants in the labour market and their understanding of collective action, as (migrant) workers. In addition the project aims at studying the employers, especially the reason for employing these two categories of migrant workers.

Keywords:

Description

Studies of migrant labour in the Swedish labour market have generally focused on those having received permanent residence permission as refugees or through family re-unification legislation. This mirrors a situation in which labour migration has been quite restrictive in Sweden.
Starting with a new labour migration reform in 2008, this is dramatically changing. An employer demand driven scheme is putting Sweden at the forefront in liberal labour migration schemes according to the OECD. While rhetoric underpinning this reform in many ways focused on high skill labour migration, it seems that two third are either temporary seasonal labour migration especially linked to the berry industry, or labour migrants recruited for fairly low skilled blue collar work especially in various forms of labour intensive blue collar work. The centrality of the employment relation to a particular employer and the temporariness of the work permit creates a high degree of employer discretion concerning labour migration.
In parallel with development, there has also been increasing research highlighting an increasing role and presence of irregular migrants in Sweden. Most of them being over-stayers after not having been granted refugee status, they are forced to look for informalised work in the margins of the Swedish labour market. This research aims at studying different aspects of these developments focusing on these two groups of migrants as migrant workers.
The aim of this research is to study the situation of labour migrants and irregular migrants in the labour market and their understanding of collective action, as (migrant) workers. In addition the project aims at studying the employers, especially the reason for employing these two categories of migrant workers.