ECONOMIC RESTRUCTURING AND THE ROLE OF FOREIGN-WORKERS IN THE 1980S -THE CASE OF GERMANY

A growing body of literature suggests that the new forms of economic a ctivity associated with post-Fordist restructuring offer limited oppor tunities for the types of unskilled and semiskilled jobs associated wi th the employment of foreign workers in Western Europe. In this paper this proposition is tested by examining the impact of economic restruc turing on West Germany's foreign work force in the 1980s. With data fo r the socially insured section of the employed population it is demons trated that male foreign workers in particular have been differentiall y and adversely affected across the entire range of manufacturing and construction industries, with a gradual replacement of foreign by indi genous workers. Contraction of employment in these crucial sectors was only partially compensated by a limited expansion of employment for m ainly female foreign workers in selected service activities. The analy sis also indicates that this general retreat of foreign labour has bee n mediated by regional differences in overall economic performance, ex pressed in a widening north-south divide and a growing focus on core a reas of foreign population. It is concluded that the German economy in the post-Fordist phase has witnessed a further marginalisation of its foreign work force, long seen as a 'structural necessity'.