Social dumping

Social dumping is a practice whereby employers use cheaper labour than is usually available at their site of production or sale, for example by moving production to a low-wage country or area, or employing poorly-paid migrant workers. Employers thus save money and potentially increase their profits. Systemic criticism suggests that as a result, governments are tempted to enter a so-called social policy regime competition by reducing their labour and social standards to ease labour costs on enterprises and to retain business activity within their jurisdiction. There is a controversy around whether social dumping takes advantage of an EU directive on internal markets, the Bolkestein directive.