Who Needs Migrant Workers?: Labour Shortages, Immigration, and Public Policy

Are migrant workers needed to 'do the jobs that locals will not do' or are they simply a more exploitable labour force?

Do they have a better "work ethic" or are they less able to complain?

Is migrant labor the solution to 'skills shortages' or actually part of the problem?

This book provides a comprehensive framework for analysing the demand for migrant workers in high-income countries.

It demonstrates how a wide range of government policies, often unrelated to migration, contribute to creating a growing demand for migrant labor. This demand can persist even during economic downturns. The book includes quantitative and qualitative analyses of the changing role of migrants in the UK economy. The empirical chapters include in-depth examinations of the nature of staff shortages and the use of migrant workers in six sectors: health; social care; hospitality; food production; construction; and financial services.

The book's conceptual framework and empirical findings are of importance to academic and policy debates about labour immigration in all high-income countries. The final chapter presents a comparative analysis of research and policy approaches to assessing labor shortages in the UK and the U.S. The book will be of significant interest to policy-makers, stakeholders, academics and students.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction, Martin Ruhs and Bridget Anderson
2. Migrant workers: who needs them? A framework for the analysis of shortages, immigration, and public policy, Bridget Anderson and Martin Ruhs
Commentary by Ken Mayhew
3. The changing shares of migrant labour in different sectors and occupation in the UK economy: An overview, Vanna Aldin, Dan James and Jonathan Wadsworth
4. Achieving a self-sufficient workforce? The utilization of migrant labour in healthcare, Stephen Bach
Commentary by Robert Elliott
5. Competing with myths: migrant labour in social care, Jo Moriarty
Commentary by Alessio Cangiano
6. The use of migrant labour in the hospitality sector: current and future implications, Rosemary Lucas and Steven Mansfield
Commentary by Linda McDowell
7. UK food businesses' reliance on low-wage migrant labour: A case of choice or constraint?, Andrew Geddes and Sam Scott
Commentary by Ben Rogaly
8. The dynamics of migrant employment in construction: Can supply of skilled labour ever match demand?, Paul Chan, Linda Clarke and Andy Dainty
Commentary by Howard Gospel
9. Immigration and the UK labour market in financial services: A case of conflicting policy challenges?, Andrew Jones
Commentary by Jonathan Beaverstock
10. A need for migrant labour? UK-US comparisons, Philip Martin

354 pages, Paperback

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WHO NEEDS MIGRANT WORKERS?

RUHS M. ANDERSON B.

Who Needs Migrant Workers?: Labour Shortages, Immigration, and Public Policy

This book provides a comprehensive framework for analysing the demand for migrant workers in high-income countries.