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This article examines hierarchies of recent intra-EU migrants from EU-West (EU15) and EU-East (New Member States 13) countries in Western European labour markets. We use data from the European Labour Force Survey 2014 special module on migrants and their descendants to analyse how different skill levels, reasons for migration and, concurrently, different job-search strategies shape hierarchies in labour market outcomes as captured by wages and occupational status. Our analyses reveal that recent EU-West migrants have jobs with higher wages and higher occupational status than recent EU-East migrants. The former are more likely to be highly skilled and more often had already found employment before migrating through job ads or direct employer contacts. EU-East migrants, by contrast, are more often medium skilled and found employment after migrating by using social networks. Different skill levels, migration motives and job-finding methods account for differences in wages and occupational status between the two groups. However, even when all of these factors – as well as individual and labour market factors – are controlled for in the regression analyses, labour market hierarchies remain significant, indirectly indicating discrimination. Overall, our results show that free labour mobility creates new hierarchies between mobile EU-West and EU-East workers in Western Europe.

This paper serves as the introduction for a special issue investigating the current status of the new EU mobility regime close to 20 years after the first eastward enlargement. Our main claim is that EU labour mobility is shaped by and has created multiple hierarchies across the EU and within EU countries, as is evident in the unequal labour market outcomes of different groups of mobile EU workers. The EU migration regime has grown more complex and diversified over the years, but underneath this complexity remain strong hierarchies that structure the patterns and consequences of mobility. We therefore propose the concept of ‘hierarchized mobility’ to grasp the complex yet unequal mobility opportunities of workers within the EU. Moreover, we argue that to understand this hierarchised mobility, both socio-economic factors and regulation should be studied. On the one hand, enduring hierarchies between national labour markets shape EU labour mobility and transform these hierarchies into hierarchies within national labour markets. On the other hand, both national and EU policies regulate and shape mobility and the hierarchies it creates. The interaction between EU rules that shape different categories of mobile workers and national social and labour market regulation can counteract or reinforce the trend towards hierarchised mobility.