EVERYDAY LIFE

The Covid-19 pandemic has shown how many of the essential jobs required to sustain the everyday life of citizens in European countries depend on the migrant labour force. Be they in agriculture, housekeeping, caregiving, or in transport, migrants often occupy positions that imply very hard working conditions that local people are often unwilling to endure. Furthermore, due to the segmentation of labour markets and obstacles to social mobility, qualified migrants often face multiple barriers to get their qualifications recognised and to get access to those skilled positions for which they are qualified.

In addition, those who are employed tend to hold more precarious and low-qualified jobs than autochthonous people. Eurostat data shows that in 2020 the EU employment rate for people aged 20 to 64 years was 61.9 % for those born outside the EU, and 73.5 % for the native-born population and for people born in another EU Member State. Correspondingly, people born outside the EU are more likely to be unemployed than their native counterparts. The same source shows that in 2020 the EU unemployment rate for people aged 20 to 64 years was 13.9 % for those born outside the EU, while for those born in another EU Member State and for the native-born population it was 8.1 % and 6.1 %, respectively.

Looking at the differences shown in the graph above in employment rates for the population aged 20-64 years between EU and non-EU born populations with tertiary education, we can clearly see a wide gap between the two. In relation to national context, Greece, Spain and Cyprus are among the countries with the largest differences of over 20 percentage points, while Malta, Portugal and Luxembourg are at the opposite end of the range.

This gap points to the problems of labour incorporation among highly-educated migrants and therefore to the challenges of homologation (including the recognition of education credentials) from their countries of origin. In this sense, the further data related to overqualification speaks for itself: in 2020, the overqualification rate in 2020 for nationals was 20.8 % compared with 32.3 % for citizens of other EU Member States and 41.4 % for non-EU citizens.

As regards the employment conditions, it is clear that migrants are more likely to find temporary and part-time jobs. In 2020, more than one fifth (20.3 %) of employees born outside the EU were in temporary employment, compared with 11.8 % for native-born employees and 13.8 % for employees born in a different EU Member State. Likewise, in the same year nearly one quarter (24.2 %) of employed persons who were born outside the EU worked part-time, compared with 16.9 % for employed native-born persons and 22.1 % for employed persons born in a different EU Member State.

It is also worth mentioning that migrants not only contribute to the growth of GDP and national economies through being employed, but they also often work as self-employed or create jobs for others through opening new businesses. Eurostat data shows that the share of persons born outside the EU that were self-employed in 2020 was 11.7 %, compared with 11.4 % for persons born in a different EU Member State and 13.9 % for the native-born population. Although the percentage of self-employed for foreign-born people is lower than for native-born, the difference is not as big as in previous indicators. This shows a tendency for migrants to start-up their own businesses or become self-employed, often as a mechanism to escape unemployment and/or underqualified positions. It should also be borne in mind that some of these businesses not only benefit national economies, but also those of the home countries. This is thanks both to migrants sending remittances back home and to engagement in transnational or international enterprises that may contribute to co-development and to the leveraging of worldwide inequalities between the Global North and the Global South.

Data on the effects of the economic crisis of 2008 show how the destruction of millions of jobs affected migrants much more than autochthonous people, due to the economic sectors they were previously employed in. As a report by the Ifo institute reveals, in 2008 and 2010 the unemployment rate of the foreign-born increased by 14% in Spain and by about 9% in Ireland and Iceland, affecting especially men. This is because women were (and still are) more concentrated in sectors related to social and household services that continued to experience employment growth during the crisis in many countries; whereas men were typically overrepresented in the most deeply-affected sectors (construction, manufacturing, finance).

With the Covid-19 crisis, migrants and foreign-born populations were again adversely affected more than native-born populations. This is mainly because the former are more likely to be in temporary employment, earn lower wages and have jobs that are less amenable to remote working. Moreover, the pandemic has made it very clear that EU economies rely heavily on migrant workers to keep them running. According to a recent study, in 2020 migrants in the EU accounted for 13% of workers that were deemed ‘essential’. In particular, the share of foreign-born workers constituted up to a third of the total number of essential low-skilled professions, including cleaners and carers, and mining, agriculture and construction labourers. Other reports confirm that, despite natives making up the majority of key workers (comprising approximately 31% of all employed working-age individuals), non-EU born migrants also proved essential in filling those vital roles, especially during periods of forced closure.

The narrative around essential workers has contributed to raise awareness of the key role undertaken by migrants in the labour market of many EU countries. In the agriculture sector, for instance, migrant labour during the 2020 lockdown helped assure the functioning of global agri-food chains. However, this narrative also risks depicting migrants primarily as objects to be exploited in the service of the economy (‘we only praise them when we need them’). That utilitarian perspective should thus be contrasted with humanitarian approaches that defend the right to migrate and advocate for migrants’ human rights, including the right to work under fair conditions with freedom, equity, security and human dignity.

At the same time, we should pay attention to the narratives that put racism as the cause of structural inequalities. These narratives make one step beyond, since they do not focus on the migrants themselves, but on the structural inequalities related to racism. Under this approach, structural racism is considered a practice of exploitation of racialised groups and individuals that are assigned by default an inferior position, and an ideology that justifies and naturalises the fact that there are groups and individuals with less rights than others.

Another narrative of disinformation about migrants revolves around welfare benefits. A recent publication from the International Migration Research Network (2020) offers in-depth analyses of the national welfare regimes in relation to the challenges of increasing mobility to and from the EU. It points to the fact that access by migrants and their offspring to welfare has become a key area of concern at a time when migration is highly politicised, and in the context of financial crises that produce high levels of unemployment and poverty like in 2008. Regardless of any increase in demand for social protection, the response of many States has been to reduce expenditure on welfare through cutting or freezing social benefits, public sector pay and pensions, increasing the retirement age, reducing unemployment benefits and/or restricting the potential range of beneficiaries. Specifically, governments have introduced (or suggested) policies aimed at limiting migrants’ eligibility for welfare benefits. In spite of these restrictions, migrants have been labelled as ‘abusers’ and an ‘unreasonable burden’ on domestic social protection systems.