Budapest ANALYSIS Temporary Agency Work as a Form and Channel of Labour Migration in Hungary TIBOR T. MESZMANN, IN COOPERATION WITH OLENA FEDYUK The main aim of the study was to reconstruct the meaning of temporary work, not only as an employment relationship, but also as a social phenomenon in Hungary. The study also looks into workers’ experiences with hiring, triangular employment arrangements, integration, and social relations in workplaces and local communities, as well as perceived effects on individual lives as a specific evaluation of temporary work. This study is based on 40 interviews conducted in 5 counties in Hungary between January and October 2017 with temporary workers from Hungary and neighbouring countries —mostly non-EU— who were working in automotive or electronics user companies. Our main finding is that temporary work exemplifies a highly flexible duality. In some cases it was experienced as an opportunity, in others it was felt to be a more coercive arrangement. The contrast was especially striking in the employment arrangements of strictly regulated Transcarpathian(Ukrainian) temp workers as well as local Hungarian workers with dependents on the one hand, and on the other hand other spatially mobile temp workers who could change their workplace and place of habitation with relative ease. Specific elements of industrial relations arrangements came into play first of all with regards to individual or group-based problems or demands. The non-transparency of arrangements between temporary work agencies and user companies in terms of fulfilling their obligations both affected temporary workers negatively and increased their sense of dependency. Those employers that avoid complying with legal requirements and obligations seem to have consciously built their practices upon power imbalances, and sought to increase their control over these(temporary) workers. One unexpected finding highlighted the problems around housing arrangements for temporary workers. Where housing is substandard(often more than 4 people per room in unhygienic conditions), it is a source of micro-level conflicts, but also fuels resentment from local workers against migrant temp workers who are provided with housing.