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‘The Biggest Problem We Are Facing Is the Running Away Problem’: Recruitment and the Paradox of Facilitating the Mobility of Immobile Workers

Author

Listed:
  • Katharine Jones

    (Coventry University, UK)

  • Leena Ksaifi

    (Independent Scholar, Lebanon)

  • Colin Clark

    (University of the West of Scotland, UK)

Abstract

Fee-charging recruitment industries in Asia have become gatekeepers to temporary employment in low-wage occupations for millions of migrant workers. One of these jobs is live-in domestic work in private households. Increasingly, workers’ recruiters are depicted as contributing to their precarious, sometimes exploitative, working conditions. However, these narratives misunderstand the systemic and regulatory functions of agencies as transnational labour market actors. This article analyses the relationship between domestic work placement agencies in Jordan and Lebanon and their clients (the employers) as they negotiate the recruitment of women from Bangladesh. Drawing on data from 146 qualitative interviews, it addresses the mechanisms of how exploitative, controlling practices are constructed and normalised by agencies in their everyday interactions with their clients as well as with workers. The article argues that placement agencies play a paradoxical role; whilst facilitating global mobility they also broker worker immobility.

Suggested Citation

  • Katharine Jones & Leena Ksaifi & Colin Clark, 2023. "‘The Biggest Problem We Are Facing Is the Running Away Problem’: Recruitment and the Paradox of Facilitating the Mobility of Immobile Workers," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 37(4), pages 841-857, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:37:y:2023:i:4:p:841-857
    DOI: 10.1177/09500170221094764
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    3. Afsar, Rita., 2009. "Unravelling the vicious cycle of recruitment : labour migration from Bangladesh to the Gulf States," ILO Working Papers 994332253402676, International Labour Organization.
    4. Jamie Peck & Nik Theodore, 2001. "Contingent Chicago: Restructuring the Spaces of Temporary Labor," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 471-496, September.
    5. Amrita Pande, 2013. "“The Paper that You Have in Your Hand is My Freedom”: Migrant Domestic Work and the Sponsorship (Kafala) System in Lebanon," International Migration Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(2), pages 414-441, June.
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