Driving forces of labour migration as barriers to labour migrants' professional mobility : The case of Yugoslav labour migration

After consolidation following the Second World War, the Yugoslav regime began modernising thecountry and transforming means of production, which resulted in a fragile economy and increasinglabour surplus. The reforms coincided with economic development and increasing demand formigrant workers in several countries in the western hemisphere. Consequently, the migration ofYugoslav labour emerged and expanded for more than a decade. This article discusses developmentsconditioning and sustaining Yugoslav labour migration and Yugoslav workers’ labour marketperformance in industrial countries of Western Europe. This article draws on empirical literatureand theoretical understandings of labour migration merged with the perception of temporariness oflabour migrants’ relocation. The article argues that Yugoslav workers’ labour market performancein Western Europe was an outcome of interactions between driving forces of Yugoslav labourmigration, practices of its main agents, and the surrounding socioeconomic contexts.