Mobility power in the migration industry: Polish workers’ trajectories in the Netherlands

Migration industries are usually researched in terms of the facilitation and control of migration and less attention is paid to how migrants as equally central agents perceive, experience and use the different intermediaries during their migration process. In this article, we examine what the migrant trajectories and lived experiences of Polish workers in the Netherlands tell us about the migration industry as part of the European labour market. In order to understand the Polish workers’ position in the migration industry and their mobility power, we take into account the dimensions of work, accommodation and social life. Our study confirms that employment agencies play a crucial role in channelling migrant workers from recruitment to work to accommodation in the Netherlands. This has led both directly and indirectly to spatial clustering and social bubbles where migrant workers work and live together and social contacts mostly take place with fellow nationals. Our analysis of the migrant trajectories also shows multiple mobility processes initiated and owned by the migrant workers through mobility power, revealing how agency evolves in space and over time and changes the positionality of migrant workers within the migration industry.