Return of the Guestworkers? Temporary Labour Migration Programmes in Europe

Less than ten years ago, policymakers and civil society alike were heralding temporary migration programmes (TMPs) as a panacea for managed migration in Europe. Faced with political opposition to immigration on the one hand, and labour market gaps on the other, TMPs were presented as the solution to Europe’s migration conundrum. The European Commission emerged as a leading advocate for the expansion of circular and temporary programmes, which it claimed could meet three objectives: addressing labour market shortages in receiving countries without permanent settlement; mitigating the ‘brain drain’ and promoting development in sending counties; and minimizing irregular migration (COM (2007) 248). Critics of TMPs in academic and policymaking communities, however, argue that they are unworkable and undesirable as they do not benefit migrants or sending countries. Drawing on results from a new immigration policy index (ImPol), we show that TMPs have not come to fruition in Europe. Instead, states have outsourced temporary labour recruitment to employers, whilst tinkering with their existing regimes in a broader move towards “temporariness”. We argue that the development of temporariness is neither efficient as a system of migration management, nor rights-based. Temporariness within migration regimes has curtailed migrants’ rights, impeded mechanisms that facilitate circularity, and exacerbated the stratification of rights based on ‘economic worth’ (Anderson 2013).