23
article
©ThePolicyPress•2012•ISSN1759-8273
Key words migrantlabour•skills•laboursupply•employers•wages•employmentconditions
Journal of Poverty and Social Justice •vol20•no1•2012•23-30•http://dx.doi.org/10.1332/175982712X626743
Reliance on migrant labour: inevitability or
policy choice?
Bridget Anderson and Martin Ruhs
This article discusses employer demand for migrant labour. We argue that the UK’s growing
relianceonmigrantworkerscannotsimplybeexplainedbylaximmigrationcontrolsormigrants’
superior‘workethic’.Itarisesfromthecomplexinteractionsbetweeninstitutions,publicpolicies
and social relations.A wide range of public policies have contributed to a growing demand for
migrantworkersintheUK
Introduction
Widespread accusations of‘modern-day slavery’and employers’assertions that migrants
have a better ‘work ethic’ than non-migrants may both be expressed, somewhat
less controversially, as claims that migrants undercut wages, terms and conditions.
Migrants in the United Kingdom (UK) are increasingly portrayed – most recently by
the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith MP (Daily Mail, 1
July 2011) – as taking jobs and opportunities from hard-pressed British people. Even
before the recession, the call ‘British jobs for British workers’ (expressed, for example,
by Gordon Brown MP as Prime Minister) had popular resonance. In response to
these concerns, the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government coming
to power in May 2010 was committed to introducing an annual limit to the number
of non-European Union (non-EU) economic migrants entering the UK to work.
The Conservative Party also stated its objective, shortly before the 2010 General
Election, to reduce net migration (crudely, numbers in minus numbers out) to the
tens of thousands by 2015. But despite these policy moves, there has been remarkably
little discussion of the fundamental question: is the UK’s reliance on migrant labour
(from both within and outside the EU) structurally embedded in its economy?
The answer to this question requires a critical analysis of employers’ arguments
that migrant workers are ‘needed to fll labour and skills shortage’ and/or ‘to do the
jobs that local workers cannot or will not do’. In this article, we will frst consider
the challenges raised by the concepts of labour shortages and skills and then go on to
explore employer demand for migrant labour, arguing that migratory processes and
immigration controls are important factors in shaping migrants’ relationships to the
labour market and to particular employers. We then lay out the range of employers’
responses to perceived staf shortages, and give examples of how these are shaped
by broader public policies. We conclude that reliance on migrant labour cannot be