Are they an advantage - or taken advantage of?

Sammanfattning: In 2019, migrant seasonal workers from outside the EU constituted approximately twenty percent of the hired workforce within the agricultural sector in Sweden. However, the total share of migrant seasonal workers is assumed to be even greater. During 2020 this figure dropped significantly due to the travel restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Federations of Swedish Farmers, this would lead to a shortage of labour harming the agricultural sector, as migrant seasonal workers were not allowed into Sweden. However, the production results reported for 2020 does not show any decline in production. This thesis aims to investigate the dependence of migrant seasonal workers through two research questions; whether the number of migrant seasonal workers affect employment in the agricultural sector and whether the dependence on migrant seasonal workers is beneficial for the agricultural sector. This was done by fitting a fixed effect model on panel data from 2010 to 2019 for employment and the number of granted work permits in the agricultural sector for non-EU citizens. The findings suggest that the number of migrant seasonal workers has little to no effect on employment in the agricultural sector. Additionally, the results suggest that the structural transformation within the agricultural sector decreases its employment. As the number of farms decreases, the ones left increase in size and substitute labour with larger and more efficient machines. In the mean time they chose to depend on migrant seasonal workers to fill the void of labour during the labour intense periods of the year. However it can not be established whether or not the dependence of migrant seasonal workers is beneficial. It is argued that the dependence of migrant seasonal workers is related to the fact that migrant seasonal workers are cheap to employ rather than a domestic shortage of labour.