Neil Ruiz's blog

When I recently traveled to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, I spoke with several government officials in the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs who told me about the many problems encountered by their migrant workers in the Middle East.  As more Ethiopians, especially women, have been migrating to the Middle East as domestic workers, the embassies and consulates have received many complaints about false contracts being issued, passports of their nationals being taken away by their employers, and abuses in the work place.  In order to tackle these problems, the government created the Overseas Employment Service, which is modeled after the Philippines Overseas Employment Administration.

Similar to the Philippines, the office regulates the private recruitment agencies to ensure that the migrants are not signing false contracts.  All private recruitment agencies are required to obtain a 300 Birr (USD$30) license from the Ministry to recruit workers for one year (renewable), report the status of their workers, and are subject to auditing by the office to ensure that the workers are not being cheated by the agencies or their employers abroad.  The office also provides pre-departure orientation seminars to educate Ethiopians about the rules of their employment contracts, how to send remittances, and the culture and work conditions in the destination country.  This three hour orientation is conducted in the Ministry offices in Addis Ababa and the government has started 3 years ago to make it mandatory for those departing the country on overseas contracts. 

The Migration and Remittances Team of the Development Economics Prospects Group (DECPG) of the World Bank is organizing a brown bag lunch seminar on "The Impact of the Economic Crisis on Migration and Remittances" on Monday, June 1, 2009 from 12:00pm-1:30pm, at the Main Complex of the World Bank, 1818 H Street NW, Room MC5-100.  Two eminent scholars, Bimal Ghosh (Colombian School of Public Administration)  and Manuel Orozco (Inter-American Dialogue) will present their views on how the economic crisis is effecting migration and  remittances world-wide.  The event will be chaired by Dilip Ratha, Lead Economist, DECPG. 

This event is open to the public.  If you would like to attend the brown bag lunch seminar, please RSVP by emailing Claudia Carter at: ccarter@worldbank.org. 

In a recent seminar at the World Bank, Peter Dixon and Maureen Rimmer presented a paper titled "Illegal Immigration: restrict or liberalize?" showing that tighter border security and internal enforcement actually reduce the welfare for U.S. households; raise the wage rate of the undocumented migrants who remain; and generate dead-weight losses in the form of prosecution and prosecution-mitigating activities. More importantly, they explain that restricting the inflow of undocumented immigrants pushes U.S. workers towards low-paid, low-skilled jobs. 

On the other hand, legalization produces a strong welfare gain for U.S. households since the supply of immigrants (now guest workers) increases and their wage falls.  At the same time, the additional inflow of guest workers has a favorable effect on the occupational mix and average real wage rate of U.S. native workers, allowing native-born US residents to complete their education, enhance their skills, and move up the occupational ladder. 

The paper surmizes that legalization is good for America since it will eliminate smugglers fees and other costs related to illegal entry, and allow immigrants (the former undocumented immigrants) to be even more productive.  If we accept this model, this means that the best action for countries with large undocumented immigrants is to legalize them and to develop a comprehensive temporary worker program.

The failure of the federal government to reform US immigration policy during the past administration has left immigration policy-making to local municipalities.  A recent report by Audrey Singer, et al. of the Brookings Institution on "Immigrants, Politics, and Local Responses to Suburban Washington" illustrates how local officials in Prince William County, VA  responded to the growth of immigrants in their county over the past decade by creating "restrictionist" policies. 

Being a county that witnessed the tripling of their Hispanic population from 2000 to 2006, many long-time residents pressured the county government to crack down on "illegal" immigration by creating legislation without a public hearing to: (1) order the police to check the residency status of lawbreakers and (2) allow the county government to deny business licenses and certain social services to unauthorized immigrants.  Many long-term residents and county officials believe that they lack the infrastructure to support the new immigrant population, while many new immigrants of Prince William County feel that they are being discriminated against.

As the US enters into a deeper recession and if Congress and President Obama choses to delay immigration reform, we may see more local governments adopt "restrictionist" immigration policies.  Should the federal government allow local officials to create immigration policy?

Today marks the celebration of the unquestionable contribution and sacrifices that many international migrants make to both destination and origin countries.  Migrants work hard, fill jobs that are needed, and send a large portion of their earnings to support their families at home.  Despite all of their contributions, native populations’ opinion and the policies developed by their governments continue to be mixed. 

As the new US President gets inaugurated next month and as the EU continues to work on developing its immigration policy, it is interesting to see what the natives in destination countries think about migrants.  A recent study by the German Marshall Fund of the United States shows that 47% of Europeans and 50% of Americans perceived immigration to be more of a problem than an opportunity.  Of all European countries, the United Kingdom is the most skeptical on immigration in Europe. Over 62% of UK respondents regarded immigration as more of a problem than opportunity.  Furthermore, over 64% of respondents.  A large majority of people in the US and the United Kingdom believe that immigrants take away jobs from natives and also immigration increases tax rates.

• With these opinions on immigration, how will immigration policies be shaped in the coming year?
• Will the British develop unfriendly policies towards the migrants who compose 10% of their overall population?
• Will negative perceptions of immigrants continue to grow as the global recession continues to hurt the US and European economies?

Last week, we released a new brief, "Protecting Temporary Workers: Migrant Welfare Funds from Developing Countries."  This note describes how countries of origin governments can play a major role in protecting their migrants abroad through migrant welfare funds.  It shows that a welfare fund operated from the origin country and financed by migrants or their employers can offer a potential efficient solution to protecting migrants from vulnerable situations abroad.  Protecting migrant workers through welfare funds also comes with some challenges: finding the right balance of services, creating meaningful partnerships, building accountability with its members, and involving destination countries.  

The second meeting of the Global Forum on Migration and Development is now taking place in Manila from October 27th to the 30th.  The theme of this year's forum is "Protecting and Empowering Migrants for Development."  One of the topics of discussion will be on how governments can share the responsibility of protecting migrants.  This topic begs the question on how governments can find ways of funding such activities. 

On August 25, 2008, the Philippine Professional Regulatory Commission released statistics indicating nearly half a million Filipino nurses are unemployed (see news).

This educated unemployment problem is nothing new to the Philippines. Prior to the creation of the government’s labor export policy in the 1970s which developed institutions to facilitate overseas employment for its citizens, there were tens of thousands of graduates who could not find a job to match their educational backgrounds in the domestic labor market. Unemployment rates for those who graduated from college in the 1960s were more than three times greater than those with only a high school diploma. Those with college degrees were even 11 times more likely to be unemployed compared to those with only an elementary school education. Contrary to what parents usually instill in their children, the more educated you are, the more likely you are to be unemployed.