Producing ‘The Right Candidate’: The Social Embeddedness of Labour Market Intermediaries for Migrant Workers in the Belgian Construction Sector

Abstract

Structural labour shortages have increased demand for skilled and documented migrant workers in Western European labour markets. In response, private recruitment agencies are playing a more significant role in the identification, placement and integration of migrant workers. While the literature on labour intermediation practices has largely focused on the commercial and contractual work of matching workers with employers, this article develops an embedded understanding of labour intermediation that foregrounds the increasingly social and relational nature of intermediation practices in contexts of labour shortage. Through a qualitative study of intermediation in the Belgian construction sector, the article demonstrates the ways in which private agencies seek to produce the ‘right candidate’ through (i) the infiltration of migrant networks, (ii) the regularisation of migrant workers and (iii) the facilitation of their integration into host societies. These findings advance an expanded understanding of labour intermediation that transcends the conventional matchmaking process.