Migration and the spatial fix: geographies of low-waged labour migration to core economies

Sam Scott and Thomas Sætre Jakobsen

Chapter 16 in Handbook of Labour Geography, 2025, pp 290-303 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Across core economies employers have turned to migrant labour to fill low-wage vacancies. This has been true in sectors like food production, construction, hospitality, tourism, care, and cleaning work since at least the 1990s. Essentially, cheaper and/or more productive labour is recruited from relatively peripheral areas, representing an in situ ‘spatial fix’ that helps maintain profitability and stave off crisis in core economies. We investigate and explain the in situ spatial fix. We then examine key geographical dimensions associated with it, namely: labour market segmentation and precarious work; the migrant work ethic; a mobility-immobility contradiction shaping low-waged work; the role of the state in ‘moulding’ migrant workers; and the agency of low-waged migrants. The principal aim of the chapter is to highlight the centrality of space and place in understanding the complexities of contemporary low-waged labour migration to core economies.

Keywords: Core-periphery; Labour; Geography; Low-waged work; Migration; Spatial fix (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781785363399
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