Flex Work Research Centre

This paper focuses on international employment agencies (IEAs). It is argued that these agencies are currently the anchors of the circular labour migration between Poland and the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, temporary staffing is a fully legal and common phenomenon, allowing agencies to transfer part of the Polish employment from the underground to a more visible presence. When viewed through the lens of geographical and work-organisation literature on the issue of labour flexibility, these migrant workers could be named migrant flexiworkers. Apart from analysing the origins and current functioning of the IEAs, the paper discusses their development prospects and other more normative aspects of migrant flexiwork.