Postdoctoral Researcher Position in Labour Immigration and Institutional Change

The Employment Relations Research Centre (FAOS) at the Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen, invites applications for two fixed-term postdoctoral researcher positions (2½ years) starting 1 March 2027, or as soon as possible thereafter.

These positions are part of the project ‘Labour Migration as a Source of Institutional Change’, which investigates how companies’ use of migrant labour can cause changes in receiving countries labour market institutions. The postdoctoral researcher will undertake comparative case studies of companies’ use of migrant labour across three sectors (manufacturing, construction and hospitality) in two countries (either Austria and Netherlands or Ireland and Sweden). The case studies will contribute to all aspects of the project, including a five-country comparison.   

The project is led by Associate Professor Jens Arnholtz (PI) and is funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark. The research team will consist of the two postdoctoral researchers and the PI.

Job Description

In many Western European countries, labour migrants’ share of employment has expanded substantially the last decades reaching beyond 25 percent in some countries. However, our current understanding of how labour market institutions change ignores labour migration. Therefore, we know little about the long-term impact of labour migration on receiving countries’ labour market institutions.

To address this issue, this project proposes and tests a new theory of how labour migration causes institutional change: Companies pursuing deviant business strategies can use labour migrants to overcome institutional obstacles and the proliferation of such deviant business strategies can cause incremental institutional change. The cumulative effects of those changes have transformative potential for how labour markets are governed.

To test and develop this theory, the postdoctoral researcher will conduct sector case studies in different countries focusing both on the link between deviant business strategies and the use of migrant labour, and on the cumulative effects of labour migration over time in different sectors and countries.

Key Tasks:

• Conduct comparative case studies of the use of migrant labor in three sectors across two countries.
• Utilize process-tracing methodologies to analyze to what extent inflow of migrant labour and proliferation of deviant business practices are related.
• Conduct and analyze interviews with company representatives, trade unions, labour inspectors and other authorities, and experts.
• Gather and analyze supplementary data such as statistics, archival data, media sources, policy documents, and studies to reconstruct historical development.
• Compare cross-national and cross-sectorial variations in how divergent business strategies and labour migration co-develop.
• Write academic articles based on findings for submission to top sociology and political science journals.
• Present findings at international conferences (e.g., SASE, CES, EPSA, ESA).

The project includes 1½ month research stay in each case country, hosted by members of the project’s advisory board.

The postdoctoral researcher position is mainly a research position, but there is a 10 % teaching obligation.

For further information, including more details on project, please contact Associate Professor Jens Arnholtz (jh@faos.dk).

Qualifications

Appointment as a postdoctoral researcher requires research qualifications at a level at least equivalent to those obtained through the satisfactory completion of a PhD programme within the relevant field.

Application deadline

30 October 2026 at 23:59 [CEST].