Conference Programme (PDF, 1019KB) - Trinity College Dublin

abstracts by stream and session
developed responses in conjunction with employers to maintain and create employment opportunities. Notably, in recent years and since
the accession of 12 new countries into the EU, the number of permits issued to non-EEA workers has steadily decreased and from 2010,
the SHWS will be discontinued. This paper is interested in the extent to which both temporary and more permanent workers within the
horticultural industry have developed strategies to shape ‘landscapes of capitalism’ (Herod, 2001) and negotiate the terms and conditions
of their employment and living circumstances. As a largely unorganised spatially mobile workforce, notwithstanding precarious health
and safety concerns within the industry, I consider the extent to which agency in this regard can impact on workers’ spatially embedded
everyday lives. With workers involved as research participants, I hope to reveal the subjective experience of employment and the extent to
which agency and its limitations are significant to workers themselves. In this regard, I am interested in the local, the contingent, the
partial and how these elements help to shape broader outcomes.
The constitution of labour market needs in Western Europe
Camilla Devitt, European University Institute, Italy
The definition of labour market needs is one of the primary tasks of immigration policy-makers. Modes of identifying these needs vary
considerably across Western Europe, from transparent scientifically-based models to more informal processes finishing with decisions
taken behind ‘gilded doors’. I take a look at two ‘matched pairs’, Ireland and the UK and Italy and France. In the former states, state
agencies and experts conduct transparent analyses of labour market needs, based on sets of pre-defined variables, as well as more
qualitative examinations of labour demand and supply and stakeholder consultancy. In the latter states, the definition of labour market
needs is based on state consultation with the social partners and other civil society groups, the process of which is not open to the public.
There is also variation within the two ‘matched pairs’. While different variables and methods are used in defining labour market needs in
Ireland and the UK, the French regions have a stronger, more consistent role than their Italian counterparts in defining their own needs
for foreign labour. In this paper, I investigate variation in modes of defining labour market needs in these four states and evaluate the
efficacy of the various methods in terms of meeting governments’ economic and political objectives. I then attempt to provide an
explanation for cross-national variation.
Recruitment Processes and Immigration Regulations: The Disjointed Pathways to Employing Migrant Carers in Ageing Societies
*Kieran Walsh, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland
Alessio Cangiano, University of Oxford, UK
There has been a significant growth in the demand for migrant registered nurses and migrant care assistants in the British and Irish
older adult long-term care sectors. The shift in population age structures, coupled with an increased difficulty in employing indigenous
carers, has meant that migrant registered nurses and migrant social carers are now embedded in the care systems of the two countries.
While this cultural transformation of the care workforce indicates that massive foreign recruitment has occurred in older adult care – a
sector disadvantaged in terms of resource allocation and prioritisation - there is little known about foreign recruitment in the long-term
care labour market. How recruitment strategies function within the regulatory structures of each country is also unknown. Given the
reliance on migrant carers, the relationship between recruitment and the regulations that govern labour migration is likely to be crucial
to sector efficiency; but has not featured in the literature.
To address the current information deficits, this paper provides new evidence on the recruitment processes of UK and Irish older adult
care providers to hire migrant nurses and social carers; the role of immigration regulations in facilitating and shaping these processes;
and the impact of this system on the older adult care sector and on migrant carers. The different migration histories of Ireland and the UK
and the disparity in the scale of migration and care sectors, introduces subtle differences in terms of policy, practice and regulation.
Nevertheless, without an empirical comparison it is difficult to know what these factors mean for the recruitment of migrant care workers
in older adult care. The research uses Irish and UK data collected as a part of the cross-national study on ‘the role of migrant care
workers in ageing societies’. A national survey of long-term care employers, telephone interviews with employers and semi-structured
interviews with migrant registered nurses and migrant care workers in Ireland and the UK were the primary data sources.
The findings indicate that a combination of recruitment strategies was used to identify and recruit migrant carers in the older adult care
sector. These included orthodox techniques (regional and local advertising), informal networks and recruitment agencies. While there is
overlap in the methods used, differences existed for the type of labour market being targeted (i.e. local versus EAA versus international),
the type of carers being recruited (i.e. nurses versus social carers) and the migration status of the care workers. The research showed
that these three factors were intertwined in the experiences of migrant carers and employers and were influenced directly by the
regulatory framework of each country. The findings are discussed in terms of key differences and similarities across the UK and Ireland
and with respect to the disadvantage of older adult care and the conceptualisation of care as represented in immigration regulations.
SESSION 6b Migration, Integration and the Labour Market
Invisible Visible Minority: Chinese in Serbia
Maja Korac, University of East London, UK
Since the mid 1990s, the number of Chinese immigrants settling in Serbia has been steadily rising; estimates vary widely from a few
thousand (Vasic, 2001) to up to 50,000 (Milutinovic, 2008). In explaining the phenomenon of Chinese migration to Serbia during the
turbulent period of the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century, the paper examines the social processes underpinning it. Chinese
immigrants started settling in Belgrade and Serbia at the time of massive inward and outward movements of the local/endogenous
population caused by war, human rights abuse and economic hardship. As a consequence, Serbia and other successor states of
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