Private Recruitment Research Articles

Producing ‘The Right Candidate’: The Social Embeddedness of Labour Market Intermediaries for Migrant Workers in the Belgian Construction Sector

Structural labour shortages have increased demand for skilled and documented migrant workers in Western European labour markets. In response, private recruitment agencies are playing a more significant role in the identification, placement and integration of migrant workers. While the literature on labour intermediation practices has largely focused on the commercial and contractual work of matching workers with employers, this article develops an embedded understanding of labour intermediation that foregrounds the increasingly social and relational nature of intermediation practices in contexts of labour shortage. Through a qualitative study of intermediation in the Belgian construction sector, the article demonstrates the ways in which private agencies seek to produce the ‘right candidate’ through (i) the infiltration of migrant networks, (ii) the regularisation of migrant workers and (iii) the facilitation of their integration into host societies. These findings advance an expanded understanding of labour intermediation that transcends the conventional matchmaking process.

Between Marketization and Demarketization: Reconfiguration of the Migration Industry in the Agricultural Sector in Israel

This paper focuses on the consequences of the implementation of a bilateral agreement between Israel and Thailand for migrant workers in the agricultural sector. Its purpose is to shed light on the key mechanisms of the transition from the marketization to demarketization of recruiting migrant workers, and to show how this transition affects the forms of labor recruitment and its consequences for the labor migrants. The study is based on three face-to-face surveys conducted among 180 agricultural workers from Thailand. Fifty-five were surveyed in 2011 before the implementation of the bilateral agreement, and 125 were interviewed after the agreement was implemented. Relying on a “before” and “after design, we first highlight the ways in which the private recruitment industry operated in Israel in the context of a state-sponsored temporary labor migration program, identifying the actors involved in the process and explaining how they profited from the labor recruitment. Second, we shed light on the importance of bilateral agreements in eliminating illicit practices for recruiting foreign workers in Israel and its practical consequences for the Thai migrants arriving under the new arrangement. We discuss our findings in light of the theories presented in the paper.

When everyday-life troubles get even bigger: Being a young woman with a disability during Covid times

Abstract One day I found myself in the middle of thousands of people crowded into a stadium to watch a match. The next day. . . a roaring silence. This was my beginning of it all. On February 21, 2020, Italy experienced the first Covid-positive case. Everything changed within hours; the entire country was frozen in sheer dread. After almost eighty days of lockdown, I started evaluating the implications that the pandemic was going to have in my life of a young, visually impaired woman. Though the long-term consequences of Covid-19 require time to fully process, in this article I examine two main changes that I can already qualify as a direct result of the hard times we have just lived through. First, the repeated lockdowns determined an abrupt halt in hiring. At the time of the Spring 2020 lockdown, I was seeking employment, as were many fellow fresh graduates. However, both public and private recruitment was suspended. Therefore, most of us had to wait months before finally getting a job. But one year of (forced) gap can be very detrimental to the career of a young person. Second, technology has proved to be very useful in times of isolation. I argue, however, that technology, itself, can determine isolation. For people with a disability, in particular, there is a hidden risk in relying too much on technology, as the hard, real life is gradually replaced by a virtual life, with fewer challenges but, at the same time, with fewer socialization and integration opportunities.

Impacts of applying for international labor migration before migration occurs

The process of international labor migration is often initiated when potential migrant workers apply for jobs offered by recruitment agencies. This paper reports the first study on the consequences of this initial process of applying for labor migration, before migration occurs. In Fiji, a private recruitment agency defrauded approximately 20,000 people of application fees for labor migration to the Middle East. I conducted a rural household survey after people made application decisions and before they became aware of the fraud. I address the endogeneity of job application by using a fraud-specific factor––proximity to the fraudster––as an instrumental variable. Households with a job applicant received less domestic transfers from other households. The reallocation of transfers was a result of the substitution for prospective but not realized international remittances. Thus, the impacts of international labor migration and remittances extend beyond actual migration and remittances studied in the literature.

Uzbekistan’s Transformation with the New Uzbek Strategy: Shifting Policies towards Mediation of Labor Migration through Migration Infrastructure

Because of the post-independence economic problems in Central Asian countries, Russia became the center of immigration, but as time passed, immigration shifted to Kazakhstan and Turkey. Uzbekistan is the most populous Central Asian country and the one that benefits the most from worker remittances. The New Uzbek Strategy, announced after Mirziyoyev's election in 2016, is transforming economy and society of the country. This paper aims to examine migration infrastructure through the New Uzbek Strategy as the way of protecting citizens abroad. It is critical to protect the rights of migrant workers in the destination countries to keep them from facing marginalization, exclusion, and poverty. Migration infrastructure is made up of regulatory, commercial, technological, humanitarian, and social elements. In this framework, the new Ministry of Labor structure, bilateral agreements, labor market regulation, allowing private recruitment companies, railway projects, development of cooperation with international organizations, and migrant networks all indicate the development of migration infrastructure components. In addition to economic liberalization, good neighborhood relations and foreign policy are important to develop migration infrastructure and institutionalization of migration. As a result, it is expected that the migration infrastructure development will increase migration, diversify of the countries and be beneficial to economic growth and transformation the country. Although these studies are still in their early stages, it has been concluded that significant steps have been taken in the infrastructure development, and the safe and regular migration will increase migration to the new destination countries in the future .

Information Support for the Statistical Assessment of Labor Market Demand in Ukraine

The statistical assessment of labor market demand has to focus on qualitative rather than quantitative characteristics of jobs from the perspective of opportunities for choice and development of employed. Such assessment of jobs requires information and technical support. A review of the available information sources on the number and structure of jobs lays the ground for constructing a comprehensive assessment methodology on the basis of official statistical observations supplemented by administrative data on vacancies. It is shown that each source has its strong and weak sides. The strong sides of official sources are systemic professional approach and standardized techniques for data collection and processing, regularity, data quality control and accountability. But these sources still remain hardly accessible for research purposes, their data are compiled by the formal and sectoral approach and published in highly aggregated form. Alternative sources, including independent analytical and marketing studies, online databases of vacancies, are displayed in open access and contain detailed vacancy descriptions. But these data are unstructured, fragmented and need careful treatment due to a high probability of the system bias caused by broad applications of marketing strategies.
 The comprehensive assessment of labor market demand should be based on the results of Labor Force Survey, which enable for simultaneous structuring of indicators by social-demographic characteristics of respondents and organizational-economic characteristics of production units. Data from this survey have to be supplemented by data from enterprise surveys on labor statistics, labor conditions and business tendencies, anonymous data from the registers of the Pension Fund of Ukraine, and by data on vacancies available in the databases of the State Employment Service and private recruitment companies.

“I am making good money, but …”: The precarious situation of Polish nurses in Norway

AbstractPrecarity is defined as precarious existence, lacking in predictability, job security, material or psychological welfare. In migration studies, precarity is often associated with low wages, “illegality” and “deportability.” Based on field research, this article focuses on Polish nurses working in Norway. As health professionals and citizens of the European Union, they do not possess the stereotypical characteristics of precarious workers. They are neither low skilled or poorly compensated nor unauthorised. Our findings emphasise multiple sources of Polish nurses’ precarity in Poland – multiple low‐wage jobs, poor life‐work balance – and in Norway – short‐time assignments, variable working hours, high levels of mobility and challenges in family reunification. Precarity in Norway stemmed from policies that left recruitment of foreign‐born nurses in the hands of private agencies acting without an oversight of the Norwegian Health Directorate. Norway subscribes to the WHO ethical recruitment principles, but it falls short in monitoring private recruitment agencies.

Рынок рекрутинговых услуг в обеспечении занятости населения Узбекистана

The article describes the main directions of formation and development of the labor market in Uzbekistan, as well as mechanisms for improving the infrastructure of this market. Special attention is paid to the need for a wide development of a network of recruiting firms that contribute to the solution of both social problems and the development of entrepreneurship in the new sphere of commercial services. It is noted that private recruitment agencies contribute to reducing tension and imbalance of the labor force in the excess labor market.

Overseas recruitment activities of NHS Trusts 2015-2018: Findings from FOI requests to 19 Acute NHS Trusts in England.

Migrant nurses form an increasing proportion of the nursing workforce, with the United Kingdom (UK) being the third most popular destination for overseas nurses in the world. The migrant nurse workforce is highly susceptible to policy changes at the macro or professional level of the donor and recipient countries. Freedom of information requests were issued to 19 National Health Service [NHS] Trusts in England to determine their involvement in overseas nurse recruitment activity from 1998 onwards. These indicate a notable shift away from active European Union (EU) recruitment and towards overseas countries particularly the Philippines and India. Reasons given were as follows: diminishing returns from EU sources, high attrition among EU nurses and the introduction of English language tests for EU nurses in July 2016. This led to Trusts revisiting their recruitment strategies by increasing more direct/less resource-intensive methods and expanding their focus outside of the EU. Trusts frequently utilised private recruitment companies for their recruitment drives, including consulting and influencing the Trusts' workforce strategies. Policy adjustments have numerous influences on the composition of the overseas nursing workforce. While the NHS continues its efforts in expanding its international nursing workforce, this should not be at the expense of ethical and sustainable recruitment practices, which may be compromised indirectly as a result.

The impact of government regulation on recruitment process, rights, wages and working conditions of labor migrants in the Israeli construction sector

To determine the impact of evolving forms of governance on migrant workers’ rights and employment conditions in Israel we first probe the extensive private recruitment industry that developed in Israel before the implementation of bilateral agreements, and examine migrant workers’ employment conditions and wages. Next we show the importance of bilateral agreements for the annulment of illicit practices in labor recruitment, as well as the practical consequences for migrants under the new arrangement. Specifically we scrutinize the impact of implementation of bilateral agreements in the construction sector on recruitment practices and fees, wage levels, and work conditions. Implementation of bilateral agreement were accompanied by dramatic decrease in the sums paid by migrant workers to reach the host country – but did not significantly improve workers’ rights, and their wages even declined. The mechanisms whereby a pool of precarious workers has emerged in the local labor market in Israel are highlighted.

Performing the “Foreign Maid” in the Global Market

YouTube videos of migrant domestic workers made by private recruitment agencies reproduce Southeast Asian women as transnational subjects whose mobility across borders is largely dependent on their performance of the ideal “foreign maid” — a figure that has become central to the maintenance of middle-class lifestyles in global cities across Asia and beyond.

Recruitment of Migrant Workers in Bangladesh: Elements of Human Trafficking for Labor Exploitation

ABSTRACTThis paper looks at the recruitment process of Bangladeshi migrant workers for employment in the Gulf States through the legal framework of human trafficking. The migrant workers are recruited through a complex process by various recruitment actors which include private recruitment agents, brokers, and social networks. This paper argues that because of harmful recruitment practices, many Bangladeshi workers are often deceived and become victims of human trafficking for labor exploitation under the Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking Act, 2012 of Bangladesh as well as the United Nations Trafficking Protocol. Some recruitment actors in Bangladesh deceive the prospective workers during recruitment for the purpose of exploitation or with the knowledge that the workers would face exploitative consequences. The study is significant in several respects; first, it links the recruitment process of migrant workers in the origin state with human trafficking though it is commonly associated with exploitation in the destination. Second, it reveals the prevalence of the crime in apparently regular/legal migration channel where potential victims go through formal procedures. Finally, and most importantly, it contributes to the legal analysis of mens rea element which is a crucial factor in establishing human trafficking as a criminal offence.

СУЧАСНІ ФОРМИ ОРГАНІЗАЦІЇ РОБОТИ ПЕРСОНАЛУ В ІВЕНТ СФЕРІ

The modern forms of the organization of labor activity in the event sphere are considered in the article. The attraction of the personnel of the appropriate professional level is carried out through the use of services of private employment agencies. The work of private recruitment agencies as intermediaries between the event agency and the employee is determined. A private agency selects an employee of the appropriate qualification, conducts interviews, tests, develops job descriptions, etc. And then transfers the right to use the workforce of the employee's to event agency that already uses the employee's professional abilities, and for that he pays his wages, bonuses, etc. The use of borrowed labor, which is realized through leasing (both short-term and long-term), and outsourcing of personnel is explored. The activities of the leasing recruitment agency include the search, training, advanced training and recruitment of employees to their staff, and subsequently their transfer to the customer - event  agency for a certain time to perform the work specified in the contract. Such trilateral labor relations are regulated by: a civil-law contract between a private recruitment agency and an enterprise-customer; an employment contract (contract) between a private agency and an employee; an implicit contract between an enterprise-customer and an employee borrowed. Outsourcing of personnel is the transfer of an event by the agency on the basis of a civil transaction of its non-core functions to the service of another external company specializing in the relevant field. In this case, the event agency buys the service, rather than the labor of specific employees. But the service is bought regularly, and the agency's employees work on the territory of the client organization (event-agency), using  production assets in its interests. The use of modern forms of work organization of the staff makes it possible for event agencies, to organize the event qualitatively and professionally, to increase the efficiency of the enterprise as a whole, and, thereby, to increase the company's competitive advantages in the industry's events.

Institutional Dynamics of Regulatory Actors in the Recruitment of Migrant Workers

This paper examines how institutional dynamics among regulatory institutions affect the governance of the recruitment of Indonesian low-skilled migrant workers. Two institutional reforms have been made to create better governance for Indonesian migrant workers in the post-authoritarian era. One was the establishment of the National Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers (BNP2TKI) while the other was the granting of greater responsibility to sub-national governments to supervise migrant worker recruitment. In spite of these institutional reforms, little progress has been made in the protection of Indonesian migrant workers. The paper reveals that the restrictive regulatory framework for the recruitment of migrant workers, which curbs private recruitment agencies, does not create better migrant worker governance. This regulatory framework does not take into consideration the horizontal relationship between the old and new institutions, and the vertical relationship between the central and sub-national governments. Horizontally, the institutional design of the proposed new regulatory framework has created institutional rivalry between the newly established regulatory actor and the old one. Vertically, the reluctance of central government to decentralise authority to sub-national governments has curtailed the ability of sub-national governments to perform a supervisory role in the recruitment process. These two inter-related factors have hindered the efforts to create a better recruitment process for Indonesian migrant workers.

A STORY OF DEBT AND BROKEN PROMISES? THE recruitment of guatemalan MIGRANT workers IN QUEBEC

For the past two decades, the number of immigrants admitted to Canada has remained relatively stable while the number of workers admitted with a temporary work permit has steadily increased. This phenomenon is explained by a shift in Canadian public policies that direct the management of labour migration. Recent research has shed light on the complex and highly ramified transnational network that allows the recruitment of temporary foreign workers. Agricultural Guatemalan workers are hired through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and the recruitment process is controlled by private recruitment intermediaries. Some abusive recruitment practices have been consistently reported. This article seeks to present the results of an empirical study documenting the recruitment by Quebec employers of Guatemalan agricultural workers and will discuss the normative framework regulating the recruitment of Guatemalan temporary foreign workers.

APMJ – Chronicling 25 years of migration in Asia and the Pacific

When the Asian and Pacific Migration Journal was launched in 1992, it was the only journal in the region devoted exclusively to the study of migration. At that time, temporary labor migration from and within the region was already significant and it has continued to grow in volume, and national migration policies have evolved to cope with it. International migration has also received increasing attention from the United Nations and several targets of the Sustainable Development Goals explicitly refer to it. APMJ has chronicled most of these changes and emphasized such themes as migration and macro-level development, the human rights of migrants, women in migration, the social impacts of migration, national policy-making, multiculturalism and transnationalism. As migration research has been strengthened in universities and institutes within Asia, coverage by countries has shifted from articles about the region as a whole and Australia to a preponderance of articles concerning East Asia, especially China, Japan and the Republic of Korea, and a similar shift has been observed in the origin of the lead authors. Because the Journal largely reflects the research being conducted in Asia and the Pacific, gaps in coverage relate to migration from South Asia and to the Middle East, the Central Asian migration system, forced migration, the role of private recruitment agencies and methodological approaches to migration research.

Welfare-to-work: experience in the emerging Vietnamese welfare state

The redevelopment of the welfare regimes of former socialist states since the terminal crisis of state socialism in the early 1980s is an emerging field of scholarship. This article contributes to this work by investigating welfare-to-work in a less-studied case, contemporary Vietnam. The research indicates that Vietnam’s newly emerged employment assistance framework represents a blend of certain aspects of the Bismarckian welfare type with earnings-related contributory social insurance measures and the Beveridge-type of flat-rate tax-financed social protection. It is also a little more liberal than the regimes of capitalist welfare states by adopting a so-called “socialisation” approach to fight unemployment. Unlike European, American and some north Asian experience, there are no signs of contracting-out of service delivery informed by new public management principles. Its funding model sits somewhere between a public employment services (PES) system and a private recruitment agency-based system. It is a hybrid model, wherein public offices deliver government-funded assistance but also receive outcome fee payments from employers. It motivates jobseekers to work, thus lowering the unemployment rate. However, its actual implementation is challenged by significant administrative problems, including a considerable amount of red tape.

Governance of Migrant Worker Recruitment: A Rights-Based Framework for Countries of Origin

AbstractA vast private recruitment industry has emerged across South and Southeast Asia, driven by exponential increases in migrant workers seeking temporary low-wage jobs abroad. Many workers encounter mistreatment which is traceable to systemic recruiter misconduct. Could origin countries better protect their citizens and render recruiters more accountable? This paper presents a novel, rights-based recruitment governance framework to tackle this challenge, based on empirical studies conducted across Asia. Section I examines recent regulatory efforts and illustrates their limited effectiveness absent such a guiding framework. Section II elucidates and applies the key elements of the framework, including: incorporation of human rights standards; enforceable legal rights and obligations; effective implementing institutions and processes; and empowered participation of migrant workers in key labour migration processes and decisions. Section III identifies structural and practical obstacles to regulatory enforcement that the framework addresses, creating necessary conditions for transnational market-based reforms and responsible recruitment within origin countries. Section IV concludes that the framework provides countries of origin with a feasible path to better protecting migrant workers within a sustainable development strategy.

Neoliberal postcolonialism in the media: Constructing Filipino nurse subjects in Finland

In 2007, a private recruitment agency started recruiting nurses from the Philippines to private elderly care homes and to operation wards in Finland. Although less than a hundred nurses have been recruited to Finland, the recruitment has received extensive media attention. Applying discourse analysis to the media data, the article analyzes the ways in which Filipino subjects were constructed by the Finnish media. We distinguish three types of categories relating to Filipino nurses as ‘good migrant/suspect worker’, ‘global commodity’ and as a ‘colonized subject’. The article argues that the discourse depicting Filipino subjects is a form of neoliberal postcolonialism, which combines a global geography of colonial power with a discourse of individualized economic risks and responsibilities.

At the Mercy of the market?: State-enabled, market-oriented labor migration and women migrants from the Philippines

Since the 1970s, overseas labor migration from the Philippines has evolved into a market-driven, private sector-dominated, and state-enabled phenomenon. The Philippines responded to a growing external demand for migrant labor by encouraging the proliferation of private recruitment agents with government performing a secondary and, primarily, facilitative role. Over the last four decades labor migrants have made a significant contribution to Philippine economic development by way of their income remittances. Increasingly since the 1990s, however, more and more of the Filipino labor migrants deployed from the country for overseas jobs were women in both unskilled and semi-skilled occupations. Confronted with high-profile cases of abuse and discrimination especially and particularly of its women migrants, the Philippine government began to enunciate a migration program policy that was grounded within a rights-based framework as can be gleaned from its adoption of the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Ac...