Migrant workers and involuntary non‐permanent jobs: agencies as new IR actors?

• Published date: 01 March 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12134
• Date: 01 March 2016
• Author: Chris Dawson,Benjamin Hopkins

Migrant workers and involuntary non-

permanent jobs: agencies as new IR actors?

Benjamin Hopkins and Chris Dawson

ABSTRACT

Using Quarterly Labour Force Survey data this article illustrates the involuntary

crowding of migrants from Central and Eastern Europe into non-permanent work

when moving to the United Kingdom. The role of agencies in mediating this relation-

ship is examined, as is their new role as actors in industrial relations systems.

1 INTRODUCTION

Research into non-permanent work has suggested that reasons stated for taking this

type of employment can be categorised into two broad types; voluntary reasons such

as a desire for job variety (Smith, 1998) or flexibility (Parker, 1994), and involuntary

reasons, mainly the absence of a permanent alternative (Korpi and Levin, 2001;

Booth et al., 2002). If routes into non-permanent work are largely associated with

the former then non-permanent employment can be viewed positively, providing indi-

viduals not only with variety and flexibility but also potentially higher wages in higher

skilled roles (O Riain, 2000). However, if these routes are involuntary then non-

permanent employment may have negative implications not only for pay (Hamersma

et al., 2014), but also for career progression (Forde and Slater, 2005) and well-being

(Dawson et al., 2014; Virtanen et al., 2005).

Non-permanent work in the United Kingdom now occurs in the context of a rap-

idly and dramatically altered labour market. On 1 May 2004 the A8 countries of Cen-

tral and Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania,

Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia) acceded to the European Union, and over 1.1 million

people from these nations registered on the Worker Registration Scheme (WRS) to

work in the UK before the scheme closed in April 2011. Prior to 2004, Clark and

Drinkwater (2008) show that people from the A8 countries made up 4.1 per cent of

the total number of migrants and immigrants to the UK. From 2004 to 2007 this fig-

ure rose to 36.5 per cent. Despite these workers being more highly qualified on aver-

age than the native UK population (Drinkwater et al., 2006), these workers have

experienced lower labour market prospects relative to comparable natives and many

have taken non-permanent roles (Heery, 2004; Datta et al., 2007; McDowell et al.,

2008). Although there is some circular migration (Hopkins et al., 2015), these issues

are of particular concern to those making longer term stays in the UK who wish to

find ‘stepping stones’into roles in the UK. However, Chiswick and Miller (2008)

❒Benjamin Hopkins, School of Management, University of Leicester, UK. Chris Dawson, School of

Management, University of Bath, UK. Correspondence should be addressed to Benjamin Hopkins, School of

Management, University of Leicester, UK; email: benjamin.hopkins@leicester.ac.uk

Industrial Relations Journal 47:2, 163–180

ISSN 0019-8692

© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

suggest that recent migrants will be confronted with lower labour market prospects as

their skill sets are not directly transferrable to a higher income economy owing to a

number of factors. These include language proficiency, labour market information,

and portability of credentials, particularly foreign-gained qualifications. Owing to

these challenges, many are involuntarily taking roles through employment agencies

(Hopkins, 2009), identified by Heery and Frege (2006) as potential new actors in

industrial relations worthy of investigation.

Using data drawn from the UK Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) covering

the period 2006 to 2012 (i.e. during the operation of the WRS) this study shows that

11.5 per cent of A8 migrants are in some form of non-permanent employment, as

compared with 4.2 per cent of UK nationals. More importantly, by analysing the

variation in reasons for taking this non-permanent employment between A8 migrants

and UK nationals this paper reveals both the involuntary nature of this crowding and

the mediating role of agencies. Specifically, 65 per cent of A8 migrants on non-

permanent contracts are taking these roles through agencies as compared to 18.9

per cent of UK natives, demonstrating the role of employment agencies as new actors

in industrial relations (Heery and Frege, 2006) in the context of these labour market

changes. Embedding these findings in data from previous qualitative case studies, it is

argued that this involuntary crowding of A8 migrants is a consequence of the inability

of these migrants to obtain a directly-employed job as their English language skills are

not of a standard that allow them to pass an interview (e.g. Alberti, 2014; Hopkins,

2009).

2 CURRENT LITERATURE ON NON-PERMANENT WORK

A substantial amount of previous research (see, for example, Forde and Slater, 2005)

has investigated reasons for organisations offering, and for individuals taking, non-

permanent employment. Much of this research has been quantitative, some using

QLFS data. The QLFS endeavours to explore individuals’reasons for taking a

non-permanent role with the following question, asked conditionally on an affirma-

tive answer that an individual’s job is non-permanent in some way: Did you take that

type of job rather than a permanent job because…

1. you had a contract which included a period of training?

2. you had a contract for a probationa ry period?

3. you could not find a permanent job?

4. you did not want a permane nt job?

5. or was there some other reason? (Source: QLFS questionnaire, 2008)

The econometric analysis presented in this paper utilises the responses from this

question. The first two responses concern information asymmetries—a role that in-

volves a period of training can be considered as a signalling process by the individual,

whereas an organisation may offer a job with a probationary period as a screening

function. These reasons however only represent a small proportion of the non-

permanent employees within our sample, making up approximately 10 per cent of

reported responses; consequently these motives do not form the main focus of this

study. What is particularly important, and forms the basis for this paper, are the

voluntary and involuntary reasons covered by responses 3 and 4, with these categories

capturing the majority of individual responses within our sample. The literature re-

lated to these two key routes is reviewed below.

164 Benjamin Hopkins and Chris Dawson

© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd