May

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Claims that since the 1990s a “migrant division of labour” has emerged in the UK.1
“Far from acting to protect workers from the worst excesses of low-paid work, we show how policies of labour market de-regulation, welfare ‘reform’ and of ‘managed migration’ have helped create a new ‘reserve army of labour’ in London consisting mainly of low-paid migrant workers”2
Sassen: Global city hypothesis: certain cities become key sites in the global economy, in this cities there is income and occupational polarisation with a growth of jobs at the top and the bottom and a decrease in the middle. Increase in migration to fill the gaps at the bottom so that “a significant proportion of low-wage jobs in the global city are filled by foreign-born migrant workers; with the worst jobs falling to the most recent arrivals or those whose immigration status renders them ineligible for state welfare and who, especially if working illegally, have little choice but to accept the poorest quality jobs”3
Hamnett: whilst accepting that Stassen's theory applied in a city like New York, where there was a large supply of cheap migrant labour and lack of welfare provision, claimed this did not apply in London, where such migrant labour was not in such large demand and where there was a wider welfare system in place.4
Contra Hamnett authors argue that such polarisation is now emerging in London, but contra Stassen also argue that this cannot be attributed solely to economic changes but also to the policies of the British state.5
“how cleaners, domestics and retail workers have all recently taken their place amongst management consultants, computer engineers, and lawyers as Britain’s fastest growing occupations. More importantly, when Goos and Manning’s analysis is repeated for London rather than for the UK as a whole, very similar trends emerge: with a very large increase in the number of top paying jobs alongside a smaller but still significant rise in the number of very low paying jobs, and a ‘falling out’ of the middle”6
37% of children living in poverty in London in households where at least one person works.7
1990s dramatic increase in migration of workers from poorer countries, coming to occupy low skilled jobs.8
critiques Conservative and New Labour economic and employment policy see 1) a restriction of benefits, seeking to force people into low-skilled jobs, but which has had little impact on unemployment levels 2) the stimulation of demand for low-skilled jobs, resulting in a skill shortage, which has increased the demand for foreign migrant labour.9
“an expanding army of actively recruited migrant labour … [alongside] an underground population of both rejected asylum seekers and undocumented migrants existing with minimal rights in the interstices of the … economy”10

last fifteen years a greater diversity in the countries from which migrants come to the UK.11
Significance of Latin Americans working in office cleaning.12
Women tend to concentrate in “semi-private” spaces such as hotels and clients homes, and men in “semi-public” spaces such as the Underground, or office cleaning.13
average wage of £ 10,200 a year.14
only 16% receive state benefits.15
“On the demand side, labour market de-regulation has provided the conditions in which the demand for low-paid employment has grown. On the supply side, a restructuring of state welfare has provided an impetus for workers to move off benefits and in to (low-paid) employment, whilst changes to state immigration policies have facilitated an increased flow of foreign-born migrants in to those jobs that still remain unattractive to native workers.”16
“Most obviously, given the recent direction of British immigration policy - in which migrant workers are treated less as potential citizens than units of labour, the supply of which can (in theory at least) be turned on and off as the needs of the British economy dictate - it is difficult to escape the conclusion that what we are witnessing is the most explicit attempt yet by the British state to create a new ‘reserve army of labour”17
Flynn: under managed migration migrant needs first to be useful to businesses, and then to himself and his family.18
See managed migration as a New Labour attempt to conciliate contradictory pressures, from business and the wider public.19 hence a way for the state to safeguard its own legitimacy.20
1J May, J Willis, K Datta,, Y Evans, J Herbert & C Mcllwaine The British State and London's Migrant Division of Labour, (London: Queen Mary University of London, 2006) available online at www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/globalcities/reports/docs/working_paper_2.pdf , 2–3.
2J May, J Willis, K Datta,, Y Evans, J Herbert & C Mcllwaine The British State and London's Migrant Division of Labour, (London: Queen Mary University of London, 2006) available online at www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/globalcities/reports/docs/working_paper_2.pdf , 3.
3J May, J Willis, K Datta,, Y Evans, J Herbert & C Mcllwaine The British State and London's Migrant Division of Labour, (London: Queen Mary University of London, 2006) available online at www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/globalcities/reports/docs/working_paper_2.pdf , 3–4, quote from page 4.
4J May, J Willis, K Datta,, Y Evans, J Herbert & C Mcllwaine The British State and London's Migrant Division of Labour, (London: Queen Mary University of London, 2006) available online at www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/globalcities/reports/docs/working_paper_2.pdf , 4–5.
5J May, J Willis, K Datta,, Y Evans, J Herbert & C Mcllwaine The British State and London's Migrant Division of Labour, (London: Queen Mary University of London, 2006) available online at www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/globalcities/reports/docs/working_paper_2.pdf , 5–6.
6J May, J Willis, K Datta,, Y Evans, J Herbert & C Mcllwaine The British State and London's Migrant Division of Labour, (London: Queen Mary University of London, 2006) available online at www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/globalcities/reports/docs/working_paper_2.pdf , 7.
7J May, J Willis, K Datta,, Y Evans, J Herbert & C Mcllwaine The British State and London's Migrant Division of Labour, (London: Queen Mary University of London, 2006) available online at www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/globalcities/reports/docs/working_paper_2.pdf , 9.
8J May, J Willis, K Datta,, Y Evans, J Herbert & C Mcllwaine The British State and London's Migrant Division of Labour, (London: Queen Mary University of London, 2006) available online at www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/globalcities/reports/docs/working_paper_2.pdf , 9–10.
9J May, J Willis, K Datta,, Y Evans, J Herbert & C Mcllwaine The British State and London's Migrant Division of Labour, (London: Queen Mary University of London, 2006) available online at www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/globalcities/reports/docs/working_paper_2.pdf , 11–14.
10Morris quoted in J May, J Willis, K Datta,, Y Evans, J Herbert & C Mcllwaine The British State and London's Migrant Division of Labour, (London: Queen Mary University of London, 2006) available online at www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/globalcities/reports/docs/working_paper_2.pdf , 14.
11J May, J Willis, K Datta,, Y Evans, J Herbert & C Mcllwaine The British State and London's Migrant Division of Labour, (London: Queen Mary University of London, 2006) available online at www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/globalcities/reports/docs/working_paper_2.pdf , 17.
12J May, J Willis, K Datta,, Y Evans, J Herbert & C Mcllwaine The British State and London's Migrant Division of Labour, (London: Queen Mary University of London, 2006) available online at www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/globalcities/reports/docs/working_paper_2.pdf , 18.
13J May, J Willis, K Datta,, Y Evans, J Herbert & C Mcllwaine The British State and London's Migrant Division of Labour, (London: Queen Mary University of London, 2006) available online at www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/globalcities/reports/docs/working_paper_2.pdf , 18.
14J May, J Willis, K Datta,, Y Evans, J Herbert & C Mcllwaine The British State and London's Migrant Division of Labour, (London: Queen Mary University of London, 2006) available online at www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/globalcities/reports/docs/working_paper_2.pdf , 20.
15J May, J Willis, K Datta,, Y Evans, J Herbert & C Mcllwaine The British State and London's Migrant Division of Labour, (London: Queen Mary University of London, 2006) available online at www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/globalcities/reports/docs/working_paper_2.pdf , 21,
16J May, J Willis, K Datta,, Y Evans, J Herbert & C Mcllwaine The British State and London's Migrant Division of Labour, (London: Queen Mary University of London, 2006) available online at www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/globalcities/reports/docs/working_paper_2.pdf , 25.
17J May, J Willis, K Datta,, Y Evans, J Herbert & C Mcllwaine The British State and London's Migrant Division of Labour, (London: Queen Mary University of London, 2006) available online at www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/globalcities/reports/docs/working_paper_2.pdf , 25.
18J May, J Willis, K Datta,, Y Evans, J Herbert & C Mcllwaine The British State and London's Migrant Division of Labour, (London: Queen Mary University of London, 2006) available online at www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/globalcities/reports/docs/working_paper_2.pdf , 26.
19J May, J Willis, K Datta,, Y Evans, J Herbert & C Mcllwaine The British State and London's Migrant Division of Labour, (London: Queen Mary University of London, 2006) available online at www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/globalcities/reports/docs/working_paper_2.pdf , 26.
20J May, J Willis, K Datta,, Y Evans, J Herbert & C Mcllwaine The British State and London's Migrant Division of Labour, (London: Queen Mary University of London, 2006) available online at www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/globalcities/reports/docs/working_paper_2.pdf , 27.