BMG Research has established itself as a leader in researching the economic and labour market impacts of migrant workers—a very significant and current issue for local, regional and national policy makers. 
 
Working in consortium with the Institute for Employment Research (IER) at Warwick University, BMG has completed a major study in the West Midlands region on this issue, and is presently undertaking a similar study in the South East region.
 
The West Midlands project, commissioned by the West Midlands Regional Observatory (WMRO) on behalf of a consortium of partners, comprised four strands of fieldwork, designed and delivered by BMG:
 
• A face-to-face survey of over 700 migrant workers of more than 40 nationalities, structured broadly in line with the sizes of the actual populations of migrant workers across the region. The study deliberately covered all migrant workers, not just those from Eastern Europe or in lower grade occupations;
• A series of eight focus groups with migrant workers, exploring some of the issues raised in the larger survey in greater depth;
• A survey of employers who employ migrant workers, totalling some 220 respondents, conducted by telephone, focusing on the sectors that were already known to be 'migrant dense';
• Depth interviews with more than 40 third party organisations—support organisations, trade unions, employment agencies, business representative organisations and other interested parties—to explore some of the wider issues.
 
The intelligence generated from this fieldwork has produced a great deal of new insight about the impact and experience of migrant workers in the West Midlands, and it is being extensively used by many partners across the region, where it has elicited considerable interest. The final report, and the technical report of the survey
work, can be found on the client's website at www.wmro.org.

BMG is now embarking upon a similar study in the South East region, this time commissioned by the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) on behalf of a regional consortium—and again the work is being undertaken in partnership with IER. 
 
The approach is very similar, though the target in the South-East is to deliver 700 face-to-face interviews with migrant workers, five focus groups, 70 employer interviews and 50 depth interviews.  Two crucial differences are that the South-East study concentrates primarily on migrants from the A8 and A2 countries, and because of the scale of the region, and the extent of existing local studies, seven case study areas have been chosen within which to undertake migrant worker survey work, rather than delivering this survey work region wide, as in the West Midlands. This project is due to be completed in April 2008.