Abstract

This paper focuses on the experiences of migrants at work in Ireland during the ongoing recession. It draws on a broader longitudinal qualitative study of two recent migrant cohorts, and challenges dominant understandings of recent migration to Ireland as economic and temporary, showing instead the complex ways in which migrants experience and understand work in their new homes. A general discussion of migrants at work in Ireland is followed by an examination of the impact of neoliberalism on working lives. The impacts of the recession are then discussed in detail, with particular reference to (under)employment and the new limits to migrant mobility that have emerged. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the importance of this issue, both for understanding working lives and migrant lives.