Squaring the circle: The ILO, temporary labour migration programmes and decent work

Temporary labour migration programmes (TLMPs) began to grow in the mid-1990s and by 2017 outstripped permanent migration for work (International Labour Organization (ILO), 2017a, 5). TLMPs impose limits on the length of time a migrant is lawfully permitted to be in the receiving country and stipulate the type of work that a migrant can lawfully perform. Typically targeting low-wage workers, TLMPs are frequently seasonal, and they are often circular. Migrant workers admitted under these programmes are regularly denied the same rights as permanent residents or citizens in the host state and they face a range of restrictions relating to access to benefits and services, mobility, residence, employment, and family life (Fudge, 2012). In effect, TLMPs create a hierarchically organized and differentiated supply of migrant workers who are often racialized and gendered (Lewis et al., 2015; Surak, 2013). Since these programmes often tie migrant workers’ right to reside and work in the host state to an on-going employment relationship with a sponsoring employer, employers exercise a great deal of control over migrant workers. TLMPs for low wage workers are associated with severe decent work deficits such as forced labour, wage theft, and discrimination (ILO, 2017a: 117).