Employers had to apply for work permits, and migrants for an "accession worker card".
They need to obtain an accession worker card, or they can work under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme SAWSS) or the Sectors Based Scheme.
Bulgarian or Romanian nationals do not need a visa, but they do need to get an accession worker card from the U.K. Border Agency before beginning work as an au pair.
Much of the change in source countries involves the effect of the 2004 EU enlargement in which workers from Accession Eight (A8) countries gained access to some EU labour markets, resulting in the largest migration flows in contemporary Europe.
Although the European Union has an aging population, and many nations need immigrant workers, the accession of new Eastern European states to the union is expected to swell the labor force.
We show results based on EU-15 Member States, but our results are robust to this choice due to the still relatively low share of workers from accession countries in Belgium.
We find that the increase in dismissal costs decreased accessions and separations for workers in small relative to large firms, especially in sectors with higher employment volatility, with a negligible impact on net employment.
Consequently, existing Member States implemented different policies towards workers from the accession countries (for a synoptic overview, see the European Commission (2008), p. 11).
In 2004, the-then Labour government allowed free migration to the UK for workers from EU accession states including Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
Turnover, accessions, separations, share of temporary workers, overtime hours per worker and sales from the INVIND survey.
