Market Making in Inter-Regional Comparison: Cross-Border Temporary Agency Employment in Europe and East Asia

Similar demographic and economic transformations in Europe and East Asia have fueled demand and created new labor supplies for cross-border placements of temporary workers. The transnational capacities of leading Japanese and European temporary agencies have played a strong role in the creation of cross-border labor markets for temporary labor in both regions. Based on empirical research, this paper draws on insights from the economic sociology of market-making and recent research on the transnationalization of economic activities to develop an inter-regional comparison of the emergence of transnational labor markets. The first part of the paper traces how cross-border labor markets for temporary labor have developed in East Asia and Europe in comparison, with a focus on market actors, including firms, states and labor on the one hand, as well as the political/regulative and economic/market dimensions of cross-border labor makrets on the other. The second part of the paper attempts to explain the differences in labor-market-making in these two world regions, to develop a theory of comparative transnationalization of economic activities. In line with recent theories of globalization, the paper concludes with an argument for approaching global labor markets from a world regional perspective.