ABSTRACT
Austria, followed by Germany, already has the largest proportion of workers from the new member states in its labour force. Migration policy has been oriented towards a guest worker regime and on the principle of rotation of foreign workers. Employers can be expected to pave the way for citizens of the new member states to work in Austria, basically with the help of recruitment agencies - a strategy which could be observed in the surge of German worker inflows to Austria. The basic problem is that individual enterprises' demand for foreign workers may reach a level that the Austrian labour market is unable to absorb. Austria is considered to be both a destination country and a transit country for illegal migrants on their way to other European Union (EU) member states. The unemployment rate of foreign workers is substantially higher than that of Austrians.
