Locuri de munca in strainatate — or "jobs abroad" in Romanian — is one of several widely followed Facebook pages that target workers from eastern Europe with adverts for jobs in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and France.

The page's profile picture shows a woman in a shower cap carrying a pallet of strawberries; its cover photo depicts two men in hard hats measuring rebar on a construction site.

With almost 17,000 followers, the page demonstrates the growing use of social media to recruit migrant laborers. But it also highlights the increasing challenge for authorities fighting misleading and exploitative recruitment online.

"If you go on Facebook, you have a lot of interest groups, migrant workers, sharing information about jobs or workers, trying to recruit each other through the internet," said Klara Skrivankova, UK and Europe program manager at Anti-Slavery International, the campaign group. "But there is very little information on rights, recruitment fees or deceptive recruitment."

A recent report co-ordinated by the International Trade Union Confederation and funded by the EU cited the Locuri de munca in strainatate page for featuring adverts that raised concerns about potential risks to workers. It said job ads that promised unrealistically high pay, offered no address for a recruitment agency or only shared a general description of work were "common red flags" for potentially exploitative recruitment.

But the Facebook page and the website linked to it continue to feature such adverts.

One advert for a tin worker from Romania to work in France provides no job or salary information, saying only that the benefits of the work include a stable working environment and a long-term mission. When contacted by the Financial Times, the recruiter hung up the phone.