Introduction

Accession to the European Union in 2004 has had a profound impact on patterns of Polish labour migration. Norway is a very new country to experience inflows from Poland, with little migration taking place prior to 2004. However, it has seen a sharp increase in the level of migration from Poland, with a pilot study entitled ‘Polish migrants to Oslo’ (PMO, see Friberg in this volume) demonstrating that in the case of the Oslo area, labour migration is strictly based on demand, and driven primarily by the construction sector.

This chapter argues that migration of workers to the construction sector in Norway is a sub-regionalised phenomenon, with the majority of migrants in Oslo originating from four regions in Poland: Zachodniopomorskie, Pomorskie, Małopolskie and Śląskie. The chapter analyses the reasons behind this trend and provides an insight into the mechanisms that have shaped and channelled these flows. The first part of the chapter provides a brief overview of the current conditions in the Polish and Norwegian construction sector. An analysis of the role of migration networks in directing the current migration flow of Polish construction workers to the Oslo area follows. The final part of the chapter is devoted to an examination of the conditions on the workers’ regional labour markets in Poland, and how these shape sub-regional patterns of migration.

Push and pull factors at macro level

As noted in chapter 2, an overwhelming figure of 92 per cent of the males interviewed in the PMO study was working in the construction sector in the Oslo area. Significantly, only 45 per cent of these migrants had completed formal training in construction or a related area in Poland, and could thus be considered as skilled workers upon arrival. It is therefore clearly visible that the current migration wave of Poles to Norway is indeed demand-driven, as the need for workers in the Norwegian construction sector is so strong that, besides a qualified workforce, it attracts considerable numbers of workers with no appropriate vocational background and/or work experience. Nevertheless, in our analysis we would like to concentrate on the group of skilled construction workers exclusively, i.e. those who had acquired appropriate qualifications through training in the home country and, though moving abroad, remain in the same sector of employment.