The study compares the findings from three Con3Post regional reports on mobility and posting flows between EU-sending, EU-receiving and third countries, namely Slovenia, Austria and Bosnia and Herzegovina; Italy, Belgium, Tunisia and Morocco; and Poland, Finland, Estonia and Ukraine. The study explores the main characteristics of the trend of posting of third country nationals (TCN) to work in the EU construction sector and focuses in particular on i) the labour market dynamics, ii) migration and mobility trends, iii) labour rights, occupational safety and health, iv) vulnerabilities of TCN posted workers, and v) management of transnational workplaces. The findings indicate that immigration of TCN workers is driven largely by economic discrepancies and wage disparities between the third countries and EU countries, as well as political and economic instabilities in the third countries. We find that some companies have become quite active in the wider European markets providing services through posting of TCNs, which has in many cases become a business model for profit maximisation. We find that the intersection of the migration and employment regimes may enhance the vulnerabilities of posted TCN workers, who tend not to defy or report their employers, on whom they depend not only for employment but also for the renewal of their work and residence permits in the sending country. We find that despite the mechanisms for control and enforcement of national/EU standards, the vulnerability of TCN posted workers persists due to the cloaking effect of the posting employment characterised by subcontracting, cross-border mobility and temporary service provision.
