Far From Routine: Employers' Recruitment and Control Strategies in Two Low Wage Sectors

ABSTRACT Contrary to HRM's prevailing view that low wage work is routine and not requiring specific HR strategies, this study reveals how employers within low wage sectors pursue active and diverse strategies to segment the labour force and shape the work package. By applying and extending the job queues/labour queues framework to two case studies (an hotel and a residential care facility), we show that contracts and conditions are influenced not only by operational and competitive considerations but also, importantly, by employers' control strategies and tools, including contract form. The hotel's enforced new recruitment strategies following the Brexit vote led to contract changes that were informed and legitimised by the employer's stereotyped perceptions of their targeted workforce group's behavioural characteristics. Furthermore, regular contracts in care and salaried contracts in the hotel were converted into precarious work by requiring acceptance of long or varied hours for low pay. Far from being routine, control and hiring strategies in low wage sectors are complex and dynamic but still constitute different ways of extracting maximum labour for little cost. Consequently they also often fail to deliver on all employer objectives.