A question that has arisen during the last months is whether and how irregular migration stocks and flows are affected by the current economic crisis. The current economic and financial crisis is probably yet to reach its highest peak, however a stagnation of economic activity and rising unemployment have been felt by several countries all over the world. The overall negative climate clearly affects both migrant and native workers.

The media have been reporting dire competition for jobs between native and migrant workers, as well as between legal and irregular workers especially in sectors like construction, which have experienced the crisis in more acute ways.
It might be logical to assume that the negative economic climate would lead to a reduction of migration inflows towards developed economies as well as a growth in return migration flows. The assumption is that some immigrants will be motivated to return to their home countries while fewer immigrants will be inclined to move given the negative prospects as regards employment and wages.
However, the situation is more complex and more fluid than that. CLANDESTINO Roundtable on Irregular Migration and the Global Economic Crisis that took place at the Clandestino workshop on Irregular Migration and Informal Employment in Europe on 27 April 2009, in Athens reached some important conclusions and suggestions that can be of relevance for policy makers and civil society actors.
There is an open question whether there are already observable changes in irregular migration flows and what the nature of these changes is. Overall the impact of the economic crisis in terms of flows between source and destination countries is uncertain and very difficult to measure because of lack of data and because a time lag is necessary for the crisis to shape flows.

Regarding the situation in southern European countries, main researchers in the CLANDESTINO project, note  that
-    the crisis increases the danger of irregular work and hence falls back to irregular status not only for newcomers but also for migrants who have settled legally for a number of years.
-    irregular migrants may have less to lose than legal migrants if they return but they will sure find re-entry very difficult hence they may consider staying enduring irregular status for the years to come.
Indeed, in those countries, the renewal of migration status is usually short term and depends totally from the employment situation of the migrant.

A recent Spanish government poll on the labour market situation in Spain with 60,000 respondents across the country has shown that unemployment has risen to 17% in the general population but to 27% among foreigners. In terms of policies developed to respond to the situation, legal channels are being restricted: the labour market sectors in which foreign workers can be invited to work have been drastically reduced compared to last year. The proposed reform of the law on Foreigners restricts the right to family reunification: while presently people with a 2-year legal stay can bring in their families including their parents, a 5-year legal stay will be required for the parents to join.
Moreover, the Spanish Ministry of Labour has introduced a scheme encouraging legal migrants to go back by paying them in two installments (first part paid in Spain, second part received at the country of origin) the unemployment allowance that they would receive if staying in Spain. Migrants who participate in this scheme undertake not to go back to Spain for the next three years. By January 2009, fewer than 1,000 migrants had opted for that scheme while current press reports put them at less than 3,000, not an impressive count considering that Spain has more than 4 million immigrants in total. According to recent evidence from qualitative research, new irregular migrants still arrive in Spain seeking for employment prospects in the underground economy.

Recent policy developments in Italy relate more to the change in the government from a centre-left to a centre-right-wing coalition than to the onset of the crisis. As things stand the annual quota system in Italy mainly refers to temporary legal migration while the underground economy continues to provide the welfare safety net for migrant workers. Under these circumstances, the Ministry of Labour has issued a circular note to labour inspection offices to apply the law but ‘accommodate’ the labour market needs. In other words, this means turn a blind eye to irregular employment. The situation is thus shaped by more difficult legal entry, less labour market checks leaving the adjustment to the crisis to the mechanisms of the labour market and notably to those most vulnerable in it notably migrant workers, whether legal or undocumented.

While the UK appears to have been hardly hit by the recession it remains unclear whether migrants are leaving the country or still arriving. The incentive to register in the Workers’ Registration Scheme are very low for short term migrants hence it is impossible to have an accurate count of migrant workers in the country today. Probably there are differences depending on the country of origin. Migrants from ‘young’ EU member states may be going back temporarily to check out the job situation in their countries of origin while migrants from developing countries most likely stay put because employment prospects and the economic situation in their countries of origin are worse than in the UK, so there is no possibility to go back.
At the same time, the UK government estimates that the number of people unemployed has reached 3 million. It is expected that there will be an increase in irregularity among currently legal migrants that have been in the UK for a longer period of time as it will become increasingly difficult to secure a job in the formal labour market.

Concerning the situation in Greece, it was noted that the number of work permits has been steadily decreasing in Greece suggesting how uncertain the legal status of migrants is in this country, in particular at times of economic crisis when jobs in the formal labour market are scarce and hence the possibility to collect the necessary welfare stamps for permit renewal is even scarcer.
However, the situation is very different for different categories of migrants. As regards employment in the countryside, migrants will stay in the areas where they have better networks that help them find employment while normally they would have circulated in different areas to look for better job prospects. Those who are more recent arrivals are likely to consider return but those who are in Greece on a long term basis are not likely to return. Given the relatively difficult economic requirements for family reunification (income that the person applying for her/his family to join her/him is required to demonstrate) and given that it will be harder for migrants to find legal jobs and hence prove their levels of income, it is expected that family reunification permits will decrease in Greece.
In fact, the main impact of the crisis on the migration situation in the country is to further slow down the process of social and economic integration of immigrants because they will have to resort to the shadow economy for jobs, many will lose their stay permits and hence they will have to start all over again their integration process.
Employers seem to take advantage of talk on the crisis to pressurize workers further more, lower their wages, not pay overtime or weekends or not pay welfare contributions.

CLANDESTINO Workshop conclusions

In this context, where the crisis is likely to overall increase the share of irregular migrants among the total immigrant population, the main conclusions drawn from the CLANDESTINO Roundtable Conference are the following:

1-The crisis leads less to unemployment and will bring the regularization of irregularity or it will make irregular work, the normal work, for both legal and irregular immigrant workers ones in the coming months immigrants.
An increase in the informal economic activities had happened again in the 1980s as a response to the 1973 oil crisis. In the present circumstances though it remains to be seen whether immigrants’ networks are strong enough to sustain patterns of informal economic growth given the little support and tolerance they experience from host polities and societies across Southern Europe

2-Wage decrease is also a big issue in all the countries as migrants, especially those without legal status and those working on daily wages, may be willing to accept the lowest of wages and the heaviest of working conditions by fear of remaining completely unemployed and with no means at all for subsistence
In this sense, there is urgent need to chart the process by which a migrant becomes undocumented. This must be part of the policy response to the crisis.

3-The likelihood that legal or irregular migrants will return to their countries of origin depends on the situation in countries of origin as well as on the family and other safety nets that migrants dispose of in the country of residence. Legal migrants have more to lose than irregular ones if obliged to return but irregular migrants may find it not feasible to go back because they are indebted to smugglers

4-Differences between men and women need to be considered: the service sector and in particular domestic employment and the cleaning and caring sector will suffer less from the crisis while sectors such as construction and generally manual jobs in the unskilled sector will suffer more. In other words, men appear to be more immediately affected by the crisis than women.

5-Xenophobic and racist incidents have increased in countries where there were hardly any while random identity checks at public places by police forces have become more frequent in countries where there was none. These developments contribute to a sense of insecurity among immigrants while legitimizing a view of irregular migration as a crime.

CLANDESTINO Workshop suggestions for policy makers

On this basis, the main suggestions from the Roundtable participants for policy makers and civil society actors are the following:

1-The Clandestino workshop considers that there have been policy developments in some countries reducing legal flows and seeking to encourage return migration with few results so far.

2-The situation in source countries needs to be considered if a government is to design appropriate policies aiming at mitigating the impact of the crisis, as if the situation in source countries is much worsened, return is unlikely no matter what the encouragement is.

3-Policies are needed rather to help labour markets react to the crisis in ways that do not excessively penalize the most vulnerable and exploitable workers notably irregular migrants.

4-Policies are needed to cater for those most vulnerable among the immigrant population: there is a need to provide for basic social support protecting irregular migrants from extreme poverty and from falling prey to networks of organized crime (e.g. prostitution and child exploitation for instance).

CLANDESTINO Workshop, Athens, 27 April 2009

Participants:

Dita Vogel- Hamburg Institute of Economics and Clandestino partner, Franck Duvell – Senior Fellow at COMPAS, University of Oxford and Clandestino partner, Carmen Gonzalez Enriquez – Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia in Madrid, Donn Flynn – Chair of PICUM (Platform of International Cooperation for Undocumented Migrants) and Director of the Migrant Rights Network in London, Apostolos Papadopoulos – Harokopeio University in Athens, Charalampos Kasimis - Athens Agricultural University, Eda Gemi – a PhD candidate University of Athens and Coordinator of the Albanian immigrant Cultural Association ‘Steki’, Thanos Maroukis, ELIAMEP Research Fellow, Francesco Fasani - author of the CLANDESTINO study on Italy, University College London, Michele Levoy – Director of PICUM, Eugenia Markova – Senior Research Fellow of London Metropolitan University, Apostolis Fotiadis – journalist at the Greek daily Kathimerini, Anouar Ikhbal – Vice president of the Greek-Pakistani Association, Theodore Lianos – University of Athens and Anna Triantafyllidou – ELIAMEP senior Research fellow and CLANDESTINO coordinator.

For more information on Irregular Migration in Europe, see CLANDESTINO Research Project and Undocumented Workers’ Transitions Research Project.