ABSTRACT
Our chapter contributes to the literature on interrelations between developments in the rural sector of destination countries and international labour migration by examining the unexplored context of post-communist new migration destinations. In our analysis, we focus on the recent inflow of Ukrainian workers to Poland and the role of agriculture in this process. While the demand for foreign farm workers initially constituted the main driver for labour migration from Ukraine to Poland, the role of agriculture in the employment of foreign labour has been diminishing in recent years. We examine the patterns of selection and recruitment of Ukrainian farm workers in order to evaluate the competitive strength of the rural sector in attracting foreign labour. We differentiate between the Mazovian labour market – the centre of Polish horticulture production, highly dependent on a foreign labour force – and the rest of Poland. Based on Poland-wide survey data from 2017, we argue that the competitive strength of the rural sector is decreasing in the context of the progressive opening of new sectors for foreign workers. This conclusion is derived from the low attractiveness of employment in agriculture, compared with other sectors in terms of wages and workload, the socio-demographic profile of Ukrainian workers to the rural sector (older, less skilled, and more at the margins in their homeland labour markets), and ineffective modes of recruitment of Ukrainian farm workers.
