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Sustainable and socially just transnational sectoral labour markets for temporary migrants : Background report : Serbia
Aleksić, Dragan
Arandarenko, Mihail
Recognising the increasing importance of temporary transnational labour migration, the JUSTMIG project aims to examine trends and patterns of temporary labour mobility and employment of migrant workers on fixed-term or outsourced temporary contracts in selected manufacturing and service sectors in 6 EU countries, as well as the adaptation of industrial relations structures in the same 6 EU Member States and 3 EU Candidate Countries that are in this context source countries for workers. The aim of the background reports of the JUSTMIG project is to provide an assessment of the trends and dynamics of temporary labour migration from Serbia. The background report will provide both an overview of trends in outward labour migration and an assessment of the impact of outward migration on the labour market and industrial relations. The report is based on collection and analysis of statistical data on emigration from Serbia, analysis of relevant policies and regulation, and information gathered through desk research and interviews on key issues and challenges faced by labour market and Industrial relations institutions. The report starts with the first section, providing basic background on Serbian global standing in terms of outward migration, its strategic response to economic migration challenges, as well as current pieces of bilateral regulation of outward migration, especially in relation to the EU-27 countries, concluding that most of the outward economic emigration movements unfold as voluntary individual endeavours. This also means that they are very difficult to follow statistically, especially when attempting to break them down into economic sub-sectors or types of work contracts. The next section attempts to provide information on general stock and flow dynamics of Serbian emigration, and, given the lack of specific data, to indirectly assess the scope of temporary migration both into the EU-27 and 6 destination case countries within the JUSTMIG project. From the mirror statistics (EU-27 statistics on immigration stocks and flows of Serbian citizens) it becomes clear that the overall pattern of Serbian immigration into the EU has changed in the past decade in the direction of shorter stays for work reasons. Both shorter stays and increase in employment as the reason for emigration, alongside with the changed structure of the most frequent destinations, are indicative of a relative and absolute increase of temporary migration of Serbian nationals. In Section 4, we try to explain the impact of temporary work emigration on the labour market and industrial relations trends in Serbia. We believe that this type of emigration has, alongside measures to attract foreign direct investment in Serbia, contributed to the widespread skill but more recently also generalised labour market shortages. in line with the intervention logic of the JUSTMIG project, this section also attempts to provide more specific insights into temporary migration from Serbia to Slovakia, where more attention will be given to the sector of automotive industries, as well as into temporary migration from Serbia to the Netherlands, with more attention given to the sector of social and health care. We find some evidence that the bargaining power of labour, expressed in the absolute and relative increases in the minimum wage and trends in macroeconomic parameters such as the average wage and the employment rate, in Serbia has improved as a consequence of these factors. Finally, we conclude on a somewhat optimistic note, suggesting that the temporary emigration of Serbian citizens to the EU might have already peaked, and that a combination of tighter labour markets in both sending and destination countries coupled with trans-European actions of industrial relations actors, notably trade unions, might bring favourable regulatory reforms to improve the situation of Serbian temporary workers in both Serbia and in the EU.
Funded by the European Union, JUSTMIG, project no. 101126535
engleski
2024
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Keywords: labour markets, migrants