Back to the future?: Can Europe meet its labour needs through temporary migration?

Around 1974, most Western European countries abandoned policies of migrant labour recruitment, and moved towards increasingly restrictive entry rules. Today, employers, politicians and European Commission officials are considering a return to policies of systematic admission of migrant workers. Temporary or seasonal migrant worker programs have already been introduced in a number of countries. This paper inquires whether Europe is likely to return to pre-1974 migrant labour approaches. It examines the demographic, economic and social changes that have led to this new interest in labour immigration, and looks at recent proposals on temporary migration, including those of the Global Commission on International Migration. It discusses experiences of temporary migrant worker programs in Germany and the UK, and goes on to look at the European Commission's 2005 Policy Plan for Legal Migration. The paper shows that the current approaches differ significantly from the guestworker programs of the past and that there is thus no question of a general return to pre-1974 type policies. However, some current approaches do share important common features with past guestworker programs. They may lead to negative social outcomes in both receiving and sending countries