This open access book explores employers’ interests in international labour migration, arguing that employers’ interests have consistently been a major force shaping and directing international labour migration in market economies.

Employers’ interests have been underestimated in part due to the lack of an appropriate theory. This book offers a comprehensive theoretical framework for studying employers’ interests in labour migration. It does this by building on neo-institutionalist concepts, and proposing a framework for classifying institutions relevant to employers’ pursuit of their interests in this domain.

Contributors utilise qualitative document analysis, political discourse analysis, and in-depth interviews with representatives of employers’ organisations and other actors knowledgeable about employers’ interests. By looking at historical events on several continents, and subsequently focusing on four European countries: the UK, Germany, Italy and Poland, this book demonstrates that employers’ interests have consistently been the reason behind international labour migration, even if they manifest themselves differently depending on the institutional environment of the particular country. This counters the dominant public narratives of today, which treat migration primarily as a security issue. By putting the spotlight on employers and offering a theoretical framework for analysing their interests and activities, this book hopes to rectify the imbalance in both academic and public discussions concerning labour migration and the forces that shape it.

Marek Okólski is a professor at the Centre of Migration Research (CMR) at the University of Warsaw (Poland) and honorary chair of its Scientific Council. He founded the CMR in 1993 and served as its director until 2016. From 2010 to 2018, he was chair of the Committee for Migration Research at the Polish Academy of Sciences. For many years, he was also a member of the Government Council for Population and served as an adviser or expert in various other government and parliamentary bodies. His academic work includes lecturing and research at universities and institutes around the world. Professor Okólski has frequently been appointed as an expert by numerous international organisations (the UN, the European Commission, the World Bank, the Council of Europe, the OECD, the ILO and the IOM). He was deeply involved in initiating, in the early 1990s, the collaboration of researchers from Central and Eastern Europe within the mainstream of migration research, particularly within the IMISCOE network.
Professor Okólski’s main areas of research are development economics and demography. Recently, he has focused primarily on international migration. His publications include over 300 academic articles and 20 books (in this number the editing or co-editing of three previous volumes in the IMISCOE Research series: International Migration in Europe. New Trends and New Methods of Analysis, 2008; A Continent Moving West. EU Enlargement and Labour Migration from Central and Eastern Europe, 2010 and European Immigrations. Trends, Structures and Policy Implications, 2012).