Immigrant Employment Research Articles

Situating experiences of immigrant belonging in the workplace: South Africans in the United States

ABSTRACT In line with contemporary cultural geography migration studies that embrace a place-based approach, this article examines experiences of immigrant belonging within the underacknowledged social context of the workplace. In-depth interviews with 18 South African immigrants living and working in the Northeast region of the United States (U.S.) enabled an exploration of the subjective meanings and differential experiences of individuals while staying attentive to articulations of context. This approach was informed by a recognition of the relational, contextual, and contingent nature of migrant belonging. The findings of the study suggest that South African immigrant employees are not only advantageously positioned by relatively high levels of cultural capital, but also benefit from social discourse and immigration narratives in the U.S. workplace context. The article also presents various strategies and practices that participants have employed to negotiate belonging within their places of work, and considers the significance of the workplace as a source of belonging for South African immigrants in the U.S.

Polish immigrants and their children in Canada and Sweden, employment status and income patterns

Using a combination of logit, and OLS regressions we ask if the labour force outcomes for Polish immigrants differ across two immigration policy regimes (Canada and Sweden). Specifically, we compare the employment and earnings prospects of Polish immigrants and their children in Canada and Sweden using data that is similar in quality and timing. We find that in general, Polish immigrants, while facing substantial penalties compared to native-born workers fare better in Canada than in Sweden in terms of employment and income. As expected, second generation Poles fare much better than their immigrant counterparts in terms of employment and earnings differentials and have similar outcomes to the native-born majority in both countries. Membership in the EU fundamentally changed migration flows from Poland. In light of this we also look at how post-2004 Polish migrants have fared in both Canada and Sweden.

From national panegyrics to stage scandal: Athanasios Diakos in history

On 26 March 1894 a panegyric titled ‘Athanasios Diakos in history’ was delivered at the Society of the Friends of the People. At the dusk of the nineteenth century, this speech summarized the literary programme of a nationalizing attachment to the heroes of 1821 and their romantic monumentalization. More than a century later, the theatrical scandal of Lena Kitsopoulou’s Athanasios Diakos: The Return (Greek Festival, Athens, 2012) was a typical response to the breach inflicted on the canonical meanings and the established interpretations of the myth of Diakos. Amid a national crisis, the transformation of Diakos into a modern-day kebabhouse owner who harasses his wife and his immigrant employee performed a critical transposition of the hero into a toxic unheroic present. After reviewing the histories and mythologies of Athanasios Diakos, this article discusses Kitsopoulou’s production and its reception in order to argue that the playwright called upon a dramaturgy of suspicion that threatened the credibility of a heroic past, destabilizing thereby national expectations and assumptions.

De facto immigration enforcement, ICE raid awareness, and worker engagement

AbstractWe explore whether fear of apprehension affects immigrants' labor market engagement by examining how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removals due to immigration violations and increased awareness of immigration raids impact their labor market outcomes. We find that ICE deportations are associated with reductions in the labor force participation and employment of likely undocumented immigrants when compared to similarly skilled foreign‐born US citizens. Effects are particularly strong among women, especially those with children, as well as in industries likely targeted by ICE raids. Controlling for perceived threats and de jure immigration policies has little impact on these results.

Does free movement of workers boost immigrant employment? New evidence from Germany

Abstract Extending free movement of workers (FMW) to the new Member States from Central and Eastern Europe was one of the most controversial political decisions in the history of the European Union. In this article, we study how the introduction of FMW affected immigrants’ labor market integration in Germany. Using data from the IAB-SOEP Migration Sample,1 we show that the introduction of FMW was associated with a higher influx of skilled workers. Moreover, FMW has increased the probability of labor market entry within one year after arrival by 12 percentage points. Correspondingly, FMW improved welfare not only by increasing the scale of migration but also by raising immigrants’ skill level and reducing the time before entry into the labor market. Our findings thus yield new insights on the beneficial effects of FMW on labor market integration of immigrants in the Common Market.

BETWEEN INCLUSION & EXCLUSION: THE DIGITAL LIVES OF UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS IN THE UNITED STATES

Undocumented immigrants are a highly vulnerable group that can both benefit and suffer from digital technologies. However, little is known about their digital inclusion and the ways in which this amplifies or attenuates the vulnerabilities of their undocumented status. This paper provides rare and novel evidence from 44 in-depth interviews with undocumented Latino immigrants in the United States. It reports on findings regarding the digital employment of undocumented immigrants, the use of the internet in supporting their transnational family practices, and their uses and attitudes towards telehealth services. It highlights the importance of providing insight and analysis on digital life at the margins of society.

Migration and Sustainable Development: The Use of Ukrainian Workers’ Potential on the Polish Labour Market

Purpose: This paper features a case of using the potential brought in by workers from Ukraine who arrived in Poland. The paper's main objective involves assessing the evolution of Ukrainian citizens' potential by Polish employers and proposing recommendations for steps to be taken in the future by local governments and individual employers about the employment of immigrants from Ukraine to fulfill the assumptions of sustainable development. Design/Methodology/Approach: The presented article features both theoretical considerations and the results of the author's research. For these deliberations, the results of the author's research were used (in the form of a diagnostic survey) conducted between 03.2019 and 04.2020 among the citizens of Ukraine who resided in Poland. Findings: The analysis of the conducted study allows claiming that the potential of migrants from Ukraine is not fully utilized to fulfill the current needs of the Polish labor market. Practical Implications: The conclusion after analyzing the gathered theoretical and empirical material, demonstrating the need to undertake and devise an entire set of actions in order to implement the sustainable development in the operation of Polish companies and, in particular, to use the capabilities of the incoming workers. Such actions ought to be conducted both at the level of organizations, at a local level, and the level of the entire economy. Originality/Value: The conducted research may be treated as a pilot study to research the issue further.

Immigrant-Biased Technological Change: The Effect of New Technology Implementation on Native and Non-Western Immigrant Employment in the Netherlands

Abstract This study examines how workplace technological innovation is associated with individual-level employment turnover. We advance the literature by studying how the impact of technology differs for Dutch native workers and workers with non-Western immigrant backgrounds. Furthermore, we examine the disparate impacts of organizational context, as indexed by the proportion of workers with non-Western immigrant backgrounds and workplace job volatility, as well as industry-level unionization. Using large-scale Dutch matched employer–employee longitudinal data for the period 2001–2014, we find technology implementation to decrease chances of job ending, but this innovation protection is smaller and sometimes absent for workers with non-Western immigrant backgrounds than for native Dutch workers. This pattern is most marked for first-generation immigrants and immigrants from non-Dutch-speaking countries. We also find evidence of organization-level ethnic competition effects among low and middle educated workers, but not for workers with tertiary degrees. Among lower educated workers technological displacement is exaggerated in workplaces that employ many workers with immigrant backgrounds, although unionization mutes this effect. Among middle educated workers technological displacement is exaggerated in high-turnover workplaces.

Navigating Life and Work in Old Republic São Paulo

Navigating Life and Work in Old Republic São Paulo

Dairy is Different: Latino Dairy Worker Stress in Vermont.

Latino immigrant dairy workers face significant challenges. Dairy's employment of immigrants is recent compared to other sectors, though today immigrants account for over half of US dairy workers. This study applies the Migrant Farmworker Stress Inventory to dairy for the first time. Interviews of 173 workers were conducted using the MFWSI, augmented with dairy specific indictors. Bivariate analysis identified associations between dairy worker characteristics and stress. Findings were compared to other studies using the MFWSI. Average stress was74.6/156 points, with 36.5% at risk for clinically significant stress. Vermont rankedeighth among 11 MFWSI studies, and fourth of seven studies for significant stress. Primary stressors differed from studies of fruit and crop workers. Over a third of Vermont immigrant dairy workers risk debilitating stress. The MFWSI underestimates dairy farmworker stress and should be modified for this sector. Identified stressors indicate Spanish-language, dairy safety training may be beneficial.

Reassessing the commuting penalty for immigrants: new evidence from Spain

This article examines the differences in commuting length between native and immigrant employees in Spain, a relevant issue since immigrants' longer commuting times may, among other factors, reflect an imperfect spatial matching of their labour supply and demand with negative implications for their relative labour outcomes and their individual well-being. The research differentiates immigrants according to their origin and is based on a rich, nationally representative database. A novel contribution of the research is the use of decomposition econometric techniques that allow quantifying the joint and individual influence of a wide range of explanatory factors. The evidence obtained shows that, although a relevant part of the explanation of the greater commuting observed for immigrants is related to observed elements such as a different use of modes of transport, they make overall significantly longer journeys when comparing with observationally similar natives. This commuting penalty occurs yet only in the case of immigrants from emerging countries as it does not exist for those from advanced economies. Although the penalty is overall rather similar along several sociodemographic and occupational lines, it is much more pronounced for individuals living in large municipalities, which implies that previous analyses focusing on specific densely populated territories could not be nationally representative. To conclude, we offer additional novel evidence about the potential explanations of the commuting penalty of immigrants showing that it does not seem to derive from a hypothetically greater tolerance to commuting.

Belonging and its frames: Rural employers' boundary construction concerning immigrant employees

AbstractRural employers can be significant actors in defining who is welcomed to the local community and under which conditions. Despite their importance, however, the role of rural employers in the belonging process of immigrant employees is not widely known. In this study, we focused on the discursive boundaries that rural employers (re)produce when speaking about immigrant employees. The empirical data of our study consists of 35 interviews in small and medium‐sized enterprises. We identified three frames within which employers’ carry out boundary work. These frames are dealing with work ethics, workplace rules and local community. We argue that belonging was constructed in these frames ambiguously, and highlight immigrants’ hard‐working attitude, cultural discretion and local stability. We also found that the idea of belonging was not built solely on immigrants’ adaptation but that conventional boundaries were also flexible.

Immigration and integration in rural areas and the agricultural sector: An EU perspective

Immigrants in rural areas and immigrant employment in the agricultural sector have been studied from a variety of perspectives. However, we currently lack a bird's-eye view of these two phenomena covering all EU member states through time. This paper tackles that gap, first by describing the main features of immigrant settlement and economic integration in rural areas in the EU. Second, it offers an EU-wide overview of immigrants' integration in the agricultural sector. Then, it investigates empirically the degree to which the different characteristics of agricultural production in two member states – Italy and Spain – are associated with a migrant presence in the area. The study finds that, in the context of a shrinking agricultural labour force, the share of migrant workers in that sector in several regions is increasing over time. Migrants living in rural areas are more likely to be unemployed and face economic hardship than locals. Migrants employed in agriculture are, also, more likely to work in elementary occupations and temporary jobs. Finally, the case studies on Italy and Spain demonstrate that the relative size of the migrant population is related to the typology of agricultural land use and to the labour intensity and seasonality of cultivation.

Employment among female immigrants to Europe

This article investigates how cultural factors might affect the employment of female immigrants to Europe. Cultural factors include the characteristics of individual women, their countries of origin in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the European regions where they reside. Data are from the European Social Survey (2002 to 2019) and various international organisations. Employment is predicted by educational level and religiosity, religious composition of the country of origin, and rates of unemployment in the region of residence. Less educated immigrants from Muslim countries have particularly low employment rates. Contrary to expectations, the employment of female immigrants seems unaffected by overall female employment rates in the region of residence, and correlation with female employment in the country of origin disappears when controlling for its religious composition. The findings for cultural factors are consistent with theories about transculturation and also with theories about religion and moral orders. They are less consistent with a standard acculturation model hitherto popular in the research literature.

The impact of educated migrants and R&D expenditures on innovation

Abstract Migration has become a topic of great interest of the 21st century, as it triggers multiple advantages and downsides, both for the people and communities implicated, depending on the policies in place. International migration should not be perceived as an issue that needs to be solved, but rather a global phenomenon that can reduce poverty and foster inclusive growth and sustainable development, both in origin and destination countries. The most highly-skilled immigrants represent a key factor in enhancing innovation and technological change processes, which are essential aspects of social and economic development. The purpose of the study is to analyse the impact of highly educated immigrants (with tertiary-educated immigrant employees and foreign PhD students) together with R&D investments on innovative activity (proxied by the number of patents applications), in the case of the ten countries which joined the EU in 2004. The evaluated time frame is from 2011 to 2017. For the econometric analysis of the panel data, we developed fixed-effects linear regression models, at the country-level. The indicators computed are relevant to the innovative activity. The econometric estimations highlight a positive correlation between educated migrants and the number of patent applications in all ten countries. This nexus is even strengthened when we take into consideration other relevant impact factors, such as investments in R&D and human capital. Therefore, the more efforts and investments are devoted to R&D and highly educated individuals, the more predictable the innovation is.

Ambiguous practices and conflicting interests: why immigrants end up in uncertain employment

PurposeThe aim of this study is to investigate why many immigrants end up in uncertain employment.Design/methodology/approachThe paper describes a qualitative case study of three nursing homes in Oslo (Norway), which investigates immigrant employment and recruitment-related practices. Practice theory is used as the theoretical and methodological framework. The study takes an ethnographic approach and combines participant observation, semi-structured shadowing, qualitative interviews and document review.FindingsThe recruitment practice, as it is accomplished, is different from the practice that is prescribed in the formal recruitment policy. The configuration of the recruitment-related practices locks in the recruitment practice and reproduces the social order. The net effect of the recruitment-related practices is that immigrant employees remain in uncertain employment.Research limitations/implicationsA practice-theoretical approach, analyzing organizational practices as they are accomplished in space and time and not as isolated activities defined by their purpose, provides a richer understanding of the complexity and connectedness of organizational practices. Combining practice theory and institutional perspectives, the paper demonstrates how normative and regulative mediators order and align related practices. The study demonstrates the importance of examining the configuration of practices to understand how the net effect of related practices affects those who dwell in them, in this case immigrants pursuing secure and stable employment.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the field of diversity management by using practice theory to explain why measures for enhancing immigrant employment may not have the intended effect because they are interwoven in a nexus of practices with conflicting interests that (un)intentionally undermine the measures.

Firm Heterogeneity and the Impact of Immigration: Evidence from German Establishments

We revisit the old question of how immigration affects the welfare of native workers. As opposed to most of the previous literature, we look at this question through the lens of firms, as they play a crucial role in immigration and are massively heterogeneous even within sectors. We use a novel establishment-level dataset from Germany to document a new dimension of firm heterogeneity: Large firms spend a higher share of their wage bill on immigrants than small firms. We show analytically and quantitatively that ignoring this heterogeneity in immigrant share leads to biased welfare gains from immigration. To do so, we set up and estimate a quantitative model where heterogeneous firms choose their immigrant share and validate the model using an instrumental variables strategy. We then use the model to quantify the welfare effects and the bias of a 20% increase in the number of immigrants in Germany as observed between 2011 and 2017. The welfare of natives increases both through higher wages and profits, and lower prices, with aggregate welfare gains of $4 billion for native workers and $15 billion for firm owners. Immigration leads native workers to reallocate within-sector across firms, a key mechanism that explains the source of the bias. If we estimate the model without firm-level data on immigrant employment, we would underestimate the welfare gains for native workers by 11%.

De Facto Immigration Enforcement, Ice Raid Awareness, and Worker Engagement

We explore whether fear of apprehension affects immigrants' labor market engagement by examining how ICE removals due to immigration violations and increased awareness of immigration raids impact their labor market outcomes. We find that ICE deportations are associated with reductions in the labor force participation and employment of likely undocumented immigrants when compared to similarly skilled foreign-born U.S.citizens. Effects are particularly strong among women, especially those with children, as well as in industries likely targeted by ICE raids. Controlling for perceived threats and de jure immigration policies has little impact on these results.

Does Employing Skilled Immigrants Enhance Competitive Performance? Evidence from European Football Clubs

We investigate the effect of hiring skilled immigrant employees on the performance of organizations. This relationship has been difficult to establish in prior work due to theoretical ambiguity, limited data, and inherent endogeneity. We overcome these difficulties by studying European football (soccer) clubs during 1990-2020. Detailed microdata from this setting offers unusual transparency on the migration and hiring of talent and their contribution to collective performance. Further, the industry is characterized by country-level rule changes that govern the number of immigrant players clubs can hire. Using these rule changes as the basis for instrumental variables, we find a positive local average treatment effect of the number of immigrant players on the club’s in-game performance. To examine the theoretical mechanisms, we explore whether immigrants cause superior performance because they are more talented than natives or because they enhance the national diversity of their clubs. We find strong evidence for the talent mechanism. We find contingent evidence for the national diversity mechanism: national diversity has a positive relationship with club performance only when the club employs an immigrant manager (coach). The presence of an immigrant manager also strengthens the positive relationship between the number of immigrant players and club performance.

Immigrant Employment in the Slovak Hospitality Industry: Profiles, Experience, and Education

The hospitality industry is dependent on migrant employees. This statement is also valid for Slovakia, where the percentage of migrant workers rose in recent years. This research seeks to answer whether part-time and full-time applicants are overqualified and, if so, to examine whether male and female applicants tend to be overqualified using Pearson's chi square test, focusing on the likelihood of overqualification in both genders. Drawing from the immigrant hospitality applicants' CVs, which were collected and examined, the paper strives to explore their profiles and previous experience in the hospitality industry, but mainly to analyse the education they have attained. The data were collected through quantitative methods, comprising CV analysis and netnography. The analysed CVs were obtained randomly from a job recruiting and advertising domain in order to achieve the maximum objectivity possible. The findings show the majority of applicants to be of Ukrainian and Serbian nationality. Most of the international candidates possess appropriate knowledge of the Slovak language and already have work experience in the hospitality sector. More applicants were attained that had a tertiary education than with secondary education only. Thereby, the results suggest a tendency for migrant applicants to be overqualified regardless of their sex while presenting possible insights into the researched issues.