International Organization for Migration (IOM)

It was generally thought that illegal working was mostly an issue for low-skill
jobs with low pay, particularly within smaller employer organizations and in less
regulated sectors.
While there is no hard evidence on the subject, it seems likely that the vulnerable
situation of irregular migrants means that they are likely to be more willing to accept
low wages (Krenn and Haidinger, 2008), and, as a result, employers are under no
pressure to improve pay and conditions or to spend on training or other types of
benefits (Mulley, 2010). A study examining employment of undocumented migrant
workers in the restaurant and clothing sectors (Ram et al., 2001), both of which
operate in a highly competitive market place, found that irregular workers were
loyal, hard working, and reliable and were recruited on cost grounds.
Identifying potential third-country migrants with appropriate skills
to meet labour needs
Findlay et al. (2012) note that recruitment and employment of labour migrants
involves a range of knowledge practices and social relations which produce observable
selectivity in who is recruited, from where, and for what purposes (Findlay et al,
2010; Kanbur and Rapoport, 2005). Recruitment agencies (especially in the private
sector) and other transnational economic actors play an important role in identifying
appropriate potential migrants, for both temporary122 and longer-term roles, and in
filtering them from source regions to the United Kingdom (and elsewhere). Recent
research has underlined that agencies in the United Kingdom and in origin countries
make markets in the recruitment and supply of migrant workers. Moreover, the
activities of agencies are strongly embedded in institutional and regulatory regimes
in both origin and destination countries, and interact with changing labour market
conditions to make migrant workers more or less attractive to employers (Jones,
2012). Since employers are the gate-keepers in the market for jobs, the business
of recruitment agencies is to provide employers with what they are looking for.
Several different components may be important here (depending on the job in
question), including the possession of particular skills, the possession of relevant
qualifications 123 or licences, past experience of a similar job and personal qualities
and circumstances.
There is no information source in the United Kingdom providing comprehensive
information on how employers in the United Kingdom identify potential migrant
workers from outside the country, and so it is not possible to provide a ranking of
channels. What is clear, however, is that larger employers will have more resources
available to devote to HR functions and investing in specialist expertise to find suitable
workers than smaller employers. Some insights into employer recruitment behaviour
more generally is provided from more generic employer surveys. For instance, evidence
from the UK Employer Perspectives Survey 2010 covering all potential recruits (that
122 The example of SAWS in Section 1 is relevant here.
123 For example in the education sector.
country studIes – UNITED KINGDOM
201