Immigration Status and Labour Conditions: Migrant workers in Agriculture, Delivery and Logistics, and Domestic and Care Work in Europe

Ilse van Liempt, Aleksandra Grzymala-Kazlowska, Kamil Matuszczyk and Letizia Palumbo

This comparative report analyses the living and working conditions of migrants with insecure residence status (hereafter referred to as irregularised migrants) in three major European labour-market sectors—agriculture, domestic work, and delivery—across six countries: Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and the United Kingdom. Drawing on 244 interviews with migrant workers, complemented by expert and stakeholder perspectives, the report examines how irregularity is produced and managed through the interaction of migration, labour, and welfare systems (see Sigona & van Liempt 2025).

Across the cases, irregularised migrants occupy positions that are essential yet marginal within national economies. They are concentrated in activities characterised by informality, high turnover, and subcontracting. Irregularity operates simultaneously as a legal condition and as a labour relation, converting dependence and limited rights into economic flexibility and cost efficiency. Agriculture illustrates how seasonal and circular migration regimes sustain forms of dependency and informalisation. Workers from Eastern Europe, North Africa, and Asia often rely on recruiters or intermediaries who mediate access to jobs, accommodation, and transport. Long hours, insecure and uneven pay, and inadequate housing are recurrent features. Gendered divisions of labour persist, with women concentrated in manual or lower-paid tasks and facing particular risks of isolation and abuse in live-in or remote settings.

In domestic work, migrants—predominantly women—provide indispensable household and personal care across Europe’s ageing societies. Employment arrangements often blur the boundaries between work and family, producing strong emotional and social dependency. Many workers alternate between periods of regularity and irregularity as residence, employment, and family rights remain tightly linked. The intimate nature of the work environment makes violations of labour standards and experiences of harassment difficult to contest or document.

The delivery sector has emerged as an entry point for many irregularised men, especially in urban areas. Platform-based business models promote flexibility while transferring costs and risks to workers. Account-sharing practices, informal subcontracting chains, and the role of “fleet partners” create layers of dependency that replicate hierarchies of legality and status. Algorithmic management determines access to work and pay, while police checks and digital ID systems extend border enforcement into the workplace.

Alongside these patterns of dependency, the report documents a range of forms of resistance, organising, and advocacy. Irregularised workers engage in everyday acts of negotiation and mobility—changing employers, sharing information, or forming informal support networks—to navigate hostile systems. In some contexts, collective mobilisation has emerged, often in collaboration with trade unions, migrant associations, and civil-society organisations that offer advice, solidarity, and political visibility. Delivery riders have organised through digital channels to protest unfair conditions; domestic-worker networks and grassroots unions in Italy and the UK have linked struggles for recognition to broader campaigns for social rights; and NGOs across the partner countries provide spaces of protection and collective voice. These initiatives reveal how, even under restrictive regimes, irregularised migrants exercise agency and contribute to evolving forms of social organisation around work and rights.

Despite variation across sectors and countries, several common features can be detected. Irregularised migrants tend to work in roles that combine low visibility with high indispensability. Their limited access to welfare and legal protection reinforces the segmentation of labour markets along lines of gender, race, and status. Fear of detection or deportation discourages formal complaint and participation in collective action, while community initiatives frequently act as informal infrastructures of support.
The comparative analysis highlights how irregularity is institutionally produced rather than merely resulting from individual legal breaches. It emerges from the interplay of restrictive entry regimes, employer-based residence conditions, and fragmented enforcement practices. Labour markets, in turn, accommodate and reproduce this precarious workforce, integrating irregularised migrants into the everyday functioning of European economies.
In sum, irregularity is not an anomaly but a structural feature of contemporary labour regimes. It organises access to work, determines degrees of visibility and protection, and reflects broader hierarchies of gender, race, and mobility that underpin Europe’s political economy.