Hungarian Migrant Workers’ Precarisation in Austria During COVID-19

Czirfusz, Márton (2025) Hungarian Migrant Workers’ Precarisation in Austria During COVID-19. JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION AND INTEGRATION. ISSN 1488-3473

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Abstract

This paper contributes to studies of migrant labour during the COVID-19 pandemic through an empirical case study of Hungarian nationals in Austria, the second-largest group of foreign workers in the country. By bridging scholarship on labour migration and precarisation, the study shows that the pandemic further deepened the precarisation of Hungarian workers in Austria. The analysis combines labour market register data with a qualitative thematic content analysis of media narratives about Hungarian workers in two Austrian newspapers from 2020 and 2021. The empirical section explores how the state and employers responded to the challenges posed by the pandemic. It argues that the Austrian state adopted exclusion and substitution strategies that adversely affected Hungarian workers. Employers aimed to sustain production and ensure a supply of healthy workers, which was partially aligned with workers’ interests but ultimately reproduced their precarious status. The study finds that workers were engaged in relatively few counterstrategies to improve their working conditions.

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