Strategies for recruiting highly skilled migrants from India and China: a case study of firms in Sweden

• Published date: 01 July 2018
• Date: 01 July 2018
• Author: Denis Frank
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12226

Strategies for recruiting highly skilled

migrants from India and China: a case

study of firms in Sweden

Denis Frank

ABSTRACT

A striking characteristic in labour migration to Western Europe since the beginning of

the 2000s has been the increased number of skilled migrants. In Sweden, most skilled

migrants from countries outside the EU come from India, but there has also been

significant skilled migration from China. This article investigates the impact that

firms have on the migration from India and China. It focuses on managers’motives

for employing migrants, their view of migrant workers and the means they use to find

suitable workers. The article argues that interorganisational relationships play a key

role in the recruitment of highly skilled migrants. The firms that employ migrants

hold positions in an organisational field, and the relationships they have with other

actors within the field shape how and why they employ migrants. The empirical data

was collected through a multiple-case study of 13 firms that have employed high-

skilled migrants from India and China.

1 INTRODUCTION

This article investigates the impact that firms have on migration streams. Classical

studies have argued that firms want foreign workers because they accept wages and

working conditions that native workers do not accept (Castles and Kosack, 1985;

Piore, 1979). This demand for low-wage labour is a structural feature of labour

markets in advanced industrial societies (Piore, 1979). However, there have been

profound changes in the industries that employ migrants and in the concrete forms

of work that migrants perform. For instance, between 1945 and 1973, a large share

of migrants was employed in the growing manufacturing sector, but in the 2010s

the manufacturing sector has become a less important employer of migrants.

A striking characteristic in labour migration to Western Europe since the beginning

of the 2000s has been the increased number of highly skilled migrants, such as

computing professionals. The jobs that these migrants perform are inherent in the

evolvement of a post-industrial economy. These jobs are considered essential for the

continued growth of Western economies. Although there is still significant low-skilled

migration to Western Europe, it has been complemented by larger numbers of highly

skilled migrants (Sassen, 2006).

❒Denis Frank, Department of Sociology and Work Science, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg,

Sweden. Correspondence should be addressed to: Denis Frank, Phd, Senior Lecturer, Department of

Sociology and Work Science, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden.

Email: denis.frank@socav.gu.se

Industrial Relations Journal 49:4, 352–369

ISSN 0019-8692

© 2018 The Authors. Industrial Relations Journal published by Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribu-

tion and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Several European states have welcomed these skilled migrants and immigration

policies have been designed specificallyto attract this category of migrants. In political

discourse they are described as valuable human resources for whom states compete

(Menz, 2016). Thispositive evaluation contrasts with the general view of low-skilledmi-

grants, who are at best tolerated because they perform necessarylabour that is avoided

by native workers, and do not receive the same beneficial treatment as skilled migrants.

There is a significant body of research on firms that are recruiting migrants to

working-class occupations (e.g. Castles and Kosack, 1985; Paulson et al., 1994; Piore,

1979; Waldinger and Lichter, 2003). The research on firms that recruit migrants to

high-skilled occupations is much more limited (for an exception, see Khoo et al.,

2007). Few studies have been conducted on the firms that employ high-skilled

migrants, investigating areas such managers’motives for recruiting migrants and the

methods used to find foreign workers. These firms, unlike those examined in classical

studies, are not labour-intensive firms in the lower segments of the labour market, but

high-technology firms that are leading the current transformation of capitalism.

The present article investigates firms in Sweden that employ highly skilled

migrants. There has been a significant growth in the number of high-skilled jobs in

Sweden since the 1990s. Although the largest share of migrants are employed in

low-skilled occupations, significant numbers of migrants are also found in high-

skilled occupations (Åberg, 2015). The largest share of skilled migrants from non-

EU countries comes from India, but there is also significant skilled migration from

China (Migrationsverket, 2018). The migration from India and China started to

increase in the early 2000s and represents a new migration pattern. This migration

is caused by a variety of factors, such as liberalisation of immigration policy

(Bevelander et al., 2014). This article argues that firms in Sweden have a crucial

impact on this migration. The article focuses on managers’motives for employing

migrants, their view of migrant workers and the means they use to find suitable

workers. The article investigates the following questions: Why do firms employ highly

skilled migrants from India and China? How do managers view migrant workers

from India and China? What methods do managers use to find migrant workers?

The article makes two main arguments. The first is that cultural understandings

and practices that drive the employment of migrants in low-skilled occupations have

also diffused to firms that employ high-skilled migrants from India and China. For

instance, managers’have views of the attributes of these migrants that are similar

to how migrants in low-skilled occupations are viewed. Although managers are

valuing these attributes, they might contradict other attributes that managers are

searching for in high-skilled workers.

The second argument is that the relationships that firms have to other organisations

influence the employment of high-skilled migrants from India and China. The firms

that employ migrants hold positions in a specific economic field (Bourdieu and

Wacquant, 1992). Some firms are large and hold dominant positions in the field, while

other firms are small and hold outsider positions. Firms struggle with some organisa-

tions in the field and cooperate with others, for instance on the issue of foreign labour.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW: ORGANISATIONS, RELATIONSHIPS AND

CATEGORIES

Massey et al. (1998) made a distinction between the initiation of migration and the

perpetuation of migration across time and space. This distinction can, in a modified

353Strategies for recruiting highly skilled migrants

© 2018 The Authors. Industrial Relations Journal published by Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd