There was rarely enough accommodation for the workers in the west and many were forced into crowded, substandard housing.
Labor leaders say crowded housing is among the gravest concerns of workers.
Others are working at bottom-rung jobs and trying to support families who often live in crowded housing.
The Glasgow Corporation's replacement of old, outdated and crowded housing with new high-rise towers in the 1960s did little to improve the area.
But once here they encounter many of the same difficulties they had in their home countries, like low-paying jobs and crowded housing.
Nobody wants dangerous, crowded housing - not least the people who have to live in it.
Social self-sufficiency is discouraged by crowded housing or communal quarters, and by enforced daily participation in public functions.
The crowded housing, he added, encourages early marriages, since marriage and family allow young people to jump ahead on housing eligibility lists.
On the site previously had been cheap crowded inner-city housing occupied by Irish immigrants.
But by 1992, the figure was back down to only 64,500, in large part because of stories of crowded housing and unemployment in Israel.