Introduction

This chapter discusses some aspects of Bulgarian migrant economic performance in the host labour markets of Spain and Greece. The analysis is based on my empirical work in these countries. Migrant performance is defined by occupational attainment, namely, first and last or most recent job in the host country, competition in employment with native workers and migrant remitting/saving patterns. Two other definitions are adopted in the analysis. Foreigners are those who enter a country either illegally or legally and then take up employment there, but having neither a residence nor a work permit or being in violation of their entry visas. In contrast, legalized foreigners are those undocumented foreigners who manage to successfully complete a regularization programme of the host country government.

Migrants' economic performance and their degree of integration into the receiving labour market determine to a very large extent the overall assessment of the economic impact of immigration. In the case of Europe, empirical evidence on the economic impact of immigration, regardless of migrant country of origin, suggests that the derivation of robust qualitative results is a very difficult – even hopeless – task, because of the nature of the data and the inherent heterogeneity of the phenomenon. There is serious concern about the lack of access to additional, individual-based data, without which the task of estimating the effects of immigration would never be completed.2 This research contributes towards filling this knowledge gap.