COVID-19 Crisis and Labor Migration Policy: A Perspective From Estonia

Mari-Liis Jakobson,Leif Kalev

doi:10.3389/fpos.2020.595407

Abstract

Crises can function as catalysts for policy change, but change depends on multiple factors such as the actual content of the event, the agenda-setting power of the advocates of change, and their abilities to foster advocacy coalitions and break up policy monopolies. The COVID-19 crisis is an event that halted virtually all movement, including labor migration across the world, thus having great potential to act as a major focusing event. This article will look into the possibilities of this crisis to induce permanent labor migration policy change based on the case of Estonia. The article thus contributes to the literature on migration policy change from the Central and East European perspective.

Highlights

In the spring of 2020, most human mobility came to a halt, as states issued travel bans, entered state-of-emergencies or even full lockdowns due to the spread of the COVID-19 virus
The Estonian case demonstrates that while the COVID-19 crisis notably obstructed labor migration in 2020, its long-term impact is diminished by the fact that the crisis did not affect all sectors alike
The temporary restrictions still enabled EKRE to campaign for policy change and use the COVID-19 crisis as a focusing event

Summary

INTRODUCTION

In the spring of 2020, most human mobility came to a halt, as states issued travel bans, entered state-of-emergencies or even full lockdowns due to the spread of the COVID-19 virus. After becoming minister of the interior, the chairman of the party Mart Helme likened immigrant labor to slave labor that is endangering Estonia as a nation state, attacked employers using migrant labor and declared that migrant workforce should be substituted by activating those permanent residents who are inactive in the labor market and bring Estonian labor migrants back from Finland (ERR, 2019a) Two months later he dismissed the immigration regulation working group, a body of public officials of related ministries, stakeholders and experts which had been tasked with proposing ideas for immigration regulation reforms (Ministry of the Interior, 2019), a step resembling what Baumgartner and Jones (2009) have termed breaking a policy monopoly. EKRE managed to take some additional steps toward restricting shortterm labor migration to Estonia

DISCUSSION

Findings

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT