Occupational strategies of third country migrants on the Romanian labor market

Abstract

The article analyzes how third country migrants in Romania make use of occupational strategies to access the domestic labor market. The analysis develops around formal and informal occupational strategies, the latter ones further divided according to Granovetter’s (2018) ‘strong ties’ and ‘weak ties’. Empirical evidence has been collected from the narratives of twenty oral history interviews with migrants in Romania. Results indicate a reliance of third country migrants on formal and informal occupational strategies for securing employment, especially there where the public sector or private businesses fail to create the adequate employment opportunities. Both kinds of strategies are used alike, with the formal strategy strongly depending on education, hard work and free will, while the informal strategy mainly depending on the ‘ties’. Moreover, findings indicate that ‘weak ties’ tend to push migrants towards the secondary labor market of part-time and poorly paid jobs. In addition, research results also spot a tendency of male migrants to easier engage into creating and using either ‘strong’ or ‘weak ties’, while female migrants struggle to secure personal connections with the domestic population that might help them find a (better) job.