Abstract
In debates about the global governance of migration, the issue of ‘labour recruitment’ has become a sphere of governance per se. Governments are not the only orchestrators of the recruitment of migrant workers, but a plethora of initiatives run by different actors from business, social movements, trade unions, and international organizations has emerged. These overlapping and variegated initiatives ascribe conceptions of ‘fairness’, ‘ethics’, and ‘responsibility’ to refer to recruitment without clear definitional boundaries. This chapter surveys the empirical reality of labour recruitment practices by reviewing conceptualizations on labour intermediation and recruitment with a focus on structural and agential dimensions while providing an initial reflection on the various notions of fairness attributed by the different actors involved.