Liberating Migrant Labour: Probing “New” Forms of International Mobility in Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, Canada, and the US
Chair(s): Fabiola Mieres (ILO)
Discussant(s): Dalia Gesauldi-Fecteau (University of Montreal)
This panel explores continuities and changes in the evolution of programs fostering international migration for employment on a temporary basis across Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the US. Panelists investigate the conditions and outcomes of “new” international mobility programs alongside traditional temporary labour migration programs in the context of settler states whose immigration regimes have been shaped historically by various axes of social difference (gender, age, nationality, etc.) between migrants and settlers. While early immigration policies of the countries of focus promoted permanent settlement, such countries have also long relied upon temporary labour migration schemes to meet employer demands. Historically, prominent guest- or migrant-worker programs in these contexts have been characterized by depressed wages, poor working conditions, and limited access to rights, entitlements, and protections -- a dynamic shaped by colonial legacies and, in turn, racializing processes. Yet, the first quarter of the twenty-first century marked an apparent shift toward international mobility programs (IMPs) (i.e., issuing temporary work permits to postsecondary students and recent graduates, spouses of educational migrants and skilled workers, working holiday makers, and intercompany transferees). In this context, the growth of IMPs, oft typified by open work permits and assumedly more meaningful opportunities for permanent settlement, and justified typically on the basis of economic benefits to national economies (not sure), began to outpace (in some contexts) the expansion of traditional migrant work programs associated with exploitation more explicitly. In an evolving policy environment, participants in this special session use administrative and national survey data to generate profiles of migration and mobility subprograms—such as post-study permits, spousal accompaniment permits, intra-corporate transfers, and youth mobility arrangements—in Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the US, to document the changing number and composition of workers they attract (i.e., considering country of origin, gender, age) and the occupations and sectors in which workers are employed. Collectively, the six papers comprising this panel seek to advance knowledge about the nature of these programs towards identifying policy circulation and mirroring in different national contexts and its effects.
Presentations of the Special Session
A Profile of Canada’s “New” International Mobility Program: Change and Continuity in an Evolving Settler Colonial (Im)migration Policy Context
Leah F. Vosko1, Seulsam Lee1, Andrea Noack2
1York University, 2Toronto Metropolitan University
This paper explores new directions and continuities in temporary labour migration to Canada in the 21st century through a comprehensive profile of the International Mobility Program (IMP). This program facilitates work permits for a wide range of migrants, including working holidaymakers, inter-company transferees, spouses of skilled workers and students, and recently graduated international students. We compare the IMP to Canada’s longstanding Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP). Conceptualizing the contemporary (im)migration policy framework, which sorts participants in ways that contribute to gradations of temporariness (Rajkumar et al 2012) and inclusion (Portes 1997; Casas-Cortes et al. 2015), as a product of settler colonial logics, we illustrate through quantitative data analysis, that so-called mobility programs perpetuate precarity – or the simultaneous experience of labour market insecurity and insecurity of presence – among many work permit holders. We argue that this trend, which is shaped by longstanding yet increasingly complex processes of racialization, is likely to be amplified in Canada’s evolving (im)migration policy context.
Employer Characteristics, Temporary Permits, and Settler-Colonial Labour Dynamics in Canada
Rupa Banerjee1, Cynthia Spring2
1Toronto Metropolitan University, 2York University
This paper investigates employers’ use of temporary foreign workers through the International Mobility Program (IMP), with a particular focus on the relationship between employer-side characteristics and the employment of IMP permit holders. Leveraging administrative data, the study investigates correlations between firm-level attributes—including industry sector, firm size, geographic location, profitability, and participation in international trade activities such as import/export—and the utilization of IMP permits. Additionally, the research explores the diversity of permits issued under the program, such as those for intra-company transferees, working holidaymakers, and post-graduate work permit holders, to uncover patterns in employer preferences and practices. The study interrogates how the IMP perpetuates labour market hierarchies and reinforces systemic exclusions linked to racialization and the temporariness of migration status. By situating these practices within the broader immigration policy context, the research critically examines how settler-colonial logics manifest in contemporary labour market structures.
De Facto Low-skilled Migration Programs and Labour Market Segmentation in Australia
Joanne Flavel1, Adelaide Chiang1, Stephen Clibborn2, Chris Wright2
1University of Adelaide, 2University of Sydney
The Australian government have long maintained the pretence that its migration program is a high-skilled one. However, it has relied increasingly upon de facto low skilled visas not part of the dedicated skilled migration program, but which provide temporary visa holders with some form of work rights. Drawing upon descriptive analyses of data from the 2016 and 2021 Australia Census and Temporary Entrants Integrated Dataset, we find employment conditions are poorer for people on temporary bridging visas, student visas and working holiday visas. A much higher percentage of people with these visa types are not in the labour force, are employed in occupations that are generally lower paid and are employed in industries with poorer job conditions. Drawing on theories of labour market segmentation, we argue that de facto low skilled visas have contributed to segmented labour markets in industries where temporary migrant workers are concentrated.
Temporary Foreign Work in the US: A Comparative Study of the H Visa Programs
Ashwin Kumar, Shannon Gleeson
Cornell University
In the United States, temporary foreign work programs are governed by a veritable alphabet soup of visa categories. This paper specifically looks at three of the largest temporary foreign work programs: the H1-B program (which involves workers for specialty occupations requiring higher educational and skills qualifications), as well as the H-2 A (seasonal agricultural) and H-2 B (seasonal non-agricultural) programs. Though these programs are formally open to various countries, they are all dominated by a single migrant group: India (H-1B) and Mexico (H-2A and H-2B) (Kumar 2024). Demographic dominance in the migration stream alone cannot explain these trends. This paper draws on public administrative and legal-historical data to instead reveal how states and industries have curated these guestworker populations over decades. We argue that the racialized legal histories of these programs have in turn shaped strategic patterns of worker recruitment.
Is the Migration State Patriarchal? An examination of gender in migration regulation and outcomes in Aotearoa New Zealand
Natalia Boven, Francis L. Collins, Rachel Simon-Kumar
University of Auckland
The policy shift to temporary labour migration in Aotearoa New Zealandhas been observed to lead to racialised occupational niches, stratified migrant rights and forms of labour exploitation. In this paper, we add to these existing critical analyses to examine the gendered dimensions of temporary labour migration in relation to patterns of migrant status, employment and partnership. We bring together feminist analysis on gender relations and the state into conversation with analysis of policy settings and quantitative analysis of gendered patterns in migration. Through the insights generated we identify three gendered components of labour migration: a growing masculinisation of temporary labour migration visas; gendered patterns on partnership visas that expose women in particular to double dependency on their partners and partner’s employer; and a displacement of partner and child relationships transnationally by increasingly restrictive family migration settings. These gendered components of labour migration regimes in Aotearoa New Zealand highlight the ways in which the migration state, which claims to focus only on managing labour and population, also plays a role in advancing patriarchal relations.
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