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This article is devoted to the exploration of Polish and Lithuanian migrants' work experiences in the United Kingdom. It argues that it is hard to categorize these individuals as highly skilled or low-skilled because, in spite of their relatively high qualifications, they often occupy low-skilled positions in the United Kingdom. Therefore, the article suggests that these migrants are 'middling transnationals' (). Although they are classified as economic migrants, many of them have migrated to the United Kingdom not only in order to earn money but also to try life abroad, see the world, or learn English. Following Bourdieu's terminology, the article suggests ways in which migrants use different cultural capital (skills, qualifications, social environment) to enhance their economic capital in the United Kingdom, but also ways in which these different forms of migrants' capital are interrelated. The findings suggest that Eastern Europeans are highly mobile in the British labour market. Provided they possess necessary linguistic skills, migrants progress from 'any job' to a 'better job' in search of a 'dream job'. The article emphasises that this transition in the British labour market became easier after Poles and Lithuanians became EU citizens, whereby they were granted the right to work and improved access to education services in the United Kingdom. The article also argues that viewing migrants' work experiences in the context of their future plans helps to understand better why working below qualifications is acceptable to many East Europeans in the United Kingdom. This is either because it helps them maximise their income and return to their home country as soon as possible, or because a low-skilled position helps them to improve other skills (e.g., English) and serves as a stepping stone to better career opportunities in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the fall of the Iron Curtain, Poland became the main sending country in Central Europe. Despite the lack of institutional barriers to settling in member states of the European Union since 2004, many Polish migrants continued to undertake temporary labour mobility including repetitive, back-and-forth moves. This article examines the relationship between migrants' back-and-forth international mobility and their activity in the labour market of the sending country. It describes changes in the labour market status of migrants engaging in repetitive migration, based on two surveys conducted in Poland in 2001 and 2007, complemented by qualitative follow-ups. The results show that migrants deploy various economic strategies: reconcile employment in both countries; abandon jobs in Poland; or only remain economically active abroad. In many cases back-and-forth migration led to being unemployed in Poland, which constitutes an important challenge for labour market policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses migration narratives of a small group of Polish female 'repeat migrants' currently residing in Barcelona. Before settling there they lived in at least three other countries. I argue that repeat migrants experience many challenges: learning multiple languages, integrating into multiple labour markets, building multiple social networks, and adapting to cultural contexts. I asked whether these challenges have resulted in increased integration in the host societies or integration into international expatriate communities. The main findings are that the two main subgroups were 1) women who adapted well to life in Barcelona because of their Catalan partners and 2) women with international partners who tended to live in clusters of internationals. Polish immigrant women in my fieldwork perceived themselves as outsiders unless they quickly learned Spanish and Catalan. I also argue that the availability of different kinds of Urry's mobilities might influence and facilitate decisions on becoming more mobile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The enlargement of the European Union (EU) in May 2004 produced a very significant wave of immigration to the United Kingdom that is likely to continue to impact its labour market in forthcoming years. Polish migrants were by far the largest cohort of the new entrants. This paper complements previous work that has begun to establish the characteristics and labour market performance of migrants from the new member states who have entered the United Kingdom. This paper uses a unique micro-level data base to investigate the labour market evolution of Polish migrants in the UK labour market. We find that in the first UK job returns to human capital were negligible. However, for the current job an extra year of education increases the weekly gross wage by 3.2 per cent. There is evidence of a gender differential in pay in both jobs and that older workers are paid more than their younger counterparts but this effect becomes insignificant in the current job. We find that hours worked is a significant factor in wage determination. However, the influence of hours worked on wages declined by approximately 38 per cent between the first and current job. Results from multinomial logit models suggest that over-time there is some 'match' between the occupational groupings that these workers were attached to in Poland and the United Kingdom. We also find evidence that the use of employment agencies by some of these workers increases the likelihood of employment in skilled manual and non-manual occupations. Workers who have had supervisory responsibility in the United Kingdom are more likely to be in professional or intermediate occupations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]