Invisible yet essential : the role of seasonal labour migration in Sweden’s green industries

Sammanfattning: Over the past few decades, there has been a significant increase in seasonal labour migration to the green industries in Sweden. This migration, from both within and outside the EU, has been presented as a solution to local labour shortages by the industries. Migrant workers are a group that is often in a precarious situation due to the intersection of labour market regulations and migration policies. Both the labour market and migration policies in Sweden gone through substantial changes, following a neoliberal trajectory. Against the backdrop of labour market neoliberalization this thesis aims to investigate seasonal labour migration in the green industries, particularly in forestry and berry picking. It explores how different actors understand, describe, and justify the use of foreign labour and analyses the structural factors driving this trend.The thesis is comprised of four articles exploring and discussing different aspects of this subject. Collectively, they address various questions about the role of labour migration in neoliberalism, different structural actors' perspectives on migrant workers in green industries, and the connection between the inherent characteristics of green industries and labour migration. Additionally, it scrutinizes the inclusion of migrant workers in Sweden's sustainability efforts.The conclusion demonstrates that structures like neoliberalism favour economic interests in Sweden and impact sustainability work. Labour migration is seen as part of market orientation that increases the availability of exploitable labour. Symbolic boundaries between worker groups are employed to justify the need for migrant workers, complicating labour unions' organization efforts, and reinforcing inequality in an increasingly informal labour market