Covid-19 and Effects on EU Labour Mobility: Evidence from the Czech-German Borderland

This article aims to explore the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on work life of cross-border commuters in the European Union. For this specific group of migrant workers, the pandemic has become a really difficult ordeal with a number of negative effects on their work and private lives. In particular, this study addresses how cross-border commuters experienced and assessed border closures during the Covid-19 crisis, how their attitudes towards the European Union and its freedoms, including the open labour market, have changed and whether they felt disadvantaged or discriminated against in connection with restrictive measures taken in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic. This study shows and analyses that on the example of Czech commuters in the Czech-German borderland. The study points out that these cross-border commuters fell victim to unilaterally implemented measures, which, moreover, were not coordinated and did not always take into account their labour law obligations. The primary source for the analysis was the implementation of own qualitative empirical research in the form of semi-structured interviews with cross-border commuters.