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SIMON PEMBERTON AND LISA SCULLION
North West region alone each migrant worker will account for more than £7,000 of tax revenue (MSIO 2006). Given this context, it is not surprising that CEE economic migrants are viewed as a resource to fill occupations with both “skills” and “people” shortages (McClaughlin and Smith 2005; Rennie 2005), although the issue of “brain waste” is also of relevance given their concentration in less skilled occupations, regardless of skills, experience, or linguistic capability. Hence although it may appear that U.K. immigration policy may be privileging CEE migrants above others (non-EEA migrants), the fact that many CEE migrants appear to be underemployed (and yet have remained in the United Kingdom) will also have a significant influence on shaping their patterns of migration and the impact of their remittances. It also provides an interesting parallel to the situation in non-EEA countries where remittances have been a “valuable source of development finance,” but with migrant workers finding it increasingly difficult to get access to the U.K. labor market (Datta and others 2006: 11).
Method The research methodology involved 25 semistructured in-depth interviews conducted during late 2009 and early 2010 with CEE migrant workers who featured prominently in public and political debates in the United Kingdom. The interviews were carried out by a community researcher, with appropriate language skills, and a mix of “purposive” and “snowball” sampling was used. In particular, Czech, Lithuanian, Polish, and Slovak migrant workers were targeted for both pragmatic reasons (resource and time constraints and language skills and community links of the interviewer), but also because of such communities being relatively prominent within the case study area selected for the research: North West England. The basis for selecting the North West was threefold: First, the North West region has experienced a population decline of 3 percent over the last 20 years, which, coupled with an aging population (a 12 percent decline in those aged 16–24 has been forecast by 2020), means that there is an increasing reliance on migrant workers to fill both “skills” and “people” shortages (NWDA 2006). Second, the employment rate for the region is currently 2 percent below the average for England and with the highest proportion of individuals reliant on the incapacity benefit in England. The region also has high rates of working age adults with no qualifications (Office for National Statistics 2010). This means that migrant labor has been important in addressing job gaps. With regard to the profile of the Czech, Lithuanian, Polish, and Slovak individuals who participated in the research, there was both a mix of young and more mature individuals and there was a balance between those who identified themselves as single (and living with friends or on their own) and those who had families. The majority were currently employed in jobs that mirrored national patterns for the employment of CEE workers in the United Kingdom (such as warehouse operatives, food processing, packing, cleaning, and production-line work). A small number were employed in more