In observance of the International Migrants Day, Dec 18
Every year up to 10 million workers leave one country to work in another. Most are legal guest workers, and many arrive in debt to recruiters and other agents who place them in foreign jobs. If 10 million workers pay $1,000 in fees, the business of international labor migration is worth a $10 billion a year, including a large share that flows to agents in destination countries. Cutting migration costs in half would save migrants $5 billion a year.
Migrant workers who pay high fees to recruiters, governments, and other agents are vulnerable to exploitation once they are abroad. After arriving abroad, some learn that they will earn less than expected because of unanticipated deductions from their wages. If presented with a new contract that offers lower wages, most feel pressured to sign because they do not want to return to recruitment debts at home.
The wage wedge or gap that enables workers to earn in an hour they could earn in a day at home motivates international labor migration. How should this wage gap be shared among workers, employers, recruiters and governments?
ILO Conventions and laws in many countries are clear: employers should pay all migration costs, especially for low-skilled workers. But when more workers want to go abroad than there are jobs, employers and recruiters know that some workers will pay.
Each of the three major phases in international migration can cost workers money. The first involves the employer being certified to fill a job with a foreign worker. These costs are not usually passed on to migrants, but when migrants must have local sponsors, or governments impose levies on employers, some of these costs may be borne by migrants.
Most worker-paid fees arise in the second phase, when workers get contracts to fill foreign jobs. Foreign job orders usually arrive in major cities, most low-skilled migrants live in rural areas, and layers of intermediaries between the migrant and the contract extract fees. These intermediaries usually accompany the workers they recruit to cities, where licensed recruiters help migrants to obtain passports, undergo health, criminal and other checks, and have their contracts approved by government agencies.
The third phase is return after two or three years abroad. Many contracts call for end-of-service and other bonuses, but hard-to-understand requirements sometimes prevent migrants from receiving these benefits.
Reducing worker-paid migration costs requires several steps. First is promoting cooperation between governments to simplify recruitment procedures and reduce opportunities to charge workers. Second is developing uniform contracts so that workers can more easily anticipate migration costs and net earnings abroad. Third are a variety of policies. Why can’t migrant workers arrive on cheap one-way tickets rather than more costly round-trip tickets? Would standard contracts make it easier to educate and protect workers?
International labor migration is often marked by controversy. Moving workers over borders can generate win-win-win benefits for workers as well as migrant-sending-and –receiving countries, but these gains for workers can be reduced or eliminated by high migration costs. Reducing worker-paid migration costs could benefit workers at the expense of the “merchants of labor” who are now taking a large share of the wage gap that motivates migration.
The writers are respectively the retired director of the International Labor Organization’s Migration Branch and an economist at the University of California, Davis
Every year up to 10 million workers leave one country to work in another. Most are legal guest workers, and many arrive in debt to recruiters and other agents who place them in foreign jobs. If 10 million workers pay $1,000 in fees, the business of international labor migration is worth a $10 billion a year, including a large share that flows to agents in destination countries. Cutting migration costs in half would save migrants $5 billion a year.
Migrant workers who pay high fees to recruiters, governments, and other agents are vulnerable to exploitation once they are abroad. After arriving abroad, some learn that they will earn less than expected because of unanticipated deductions from their wages. If presented with a new contract that offers lower wages, most feel pressured to sign because they do not want to return to recruitment debts at home.
The wage wedge or gap that enables workers to earn in an hour they could earn in a day at home motivates international labor migration. How should this wage gap be shared among workers, employers, recruiters and governments?
ILO Conventions and laws in many countries are clear: employers should pay all migration costs, especially for low-skilled workers. But when more workers want to go abroad than there are jobs, employers and recruiters know that some workers will pay.
Each of the three major phases in international migration can cost workers money. The first involves the employer being certified to fill a job with a foreign worker. These costs are not usually passed on to migrants, but when migrants must have local sponsors, or governments impose levies on employers, some of these costs may be borne by migrants.
Most worker-paid fees arise in the second phase, when workers get contracts to fill foreign jobs. Foreign job orders usually arrive in major cities, most low-skilled migrants live in rural areas, and layers of intermediaries between the migrant and the contract extract fees. These intermediaries usually accompany the workers they recruit to cities, where licensed recruiters help migrants to obtain passports, undergo health, criminal and other checks, and have their contracts approved by government agencies.
The third phase is return after two or three years abroad. Many contracts call for end-of-service and other bonuses, but hard-to-understand requirements sometimes prevent migrants from receiving these benefits.
Reducing worker-paid migration costs requires several steps. First is promoting cooperation between governments to simplify recruitment procedures and reduce opportunities to charge workers. Second is developing uniform contracts so that workers can more easily anticipate migration costs and net earnings abroad. Third are a variety of policies. Why can’t migrant workers arrive on cheap one-way tickets rather than more costly round-trip tickets? Would standard contracts make it easier to educate and protect workers?
International labor migration is often marked by controversy. Moving workers over borders can generate win-win-win benefits for workers as well as migrant-sending-and –receiving countries, but these gains for workers can be reduced or eliminated by high migration costs. Reducing worker-paid migration costs could benefit workers at the expense of the “merchants of labor” who are now taking a large share of the wage gap that motivates migration.
The writers are respectively the retired director of the International Labor Organization’s Migration Branch and an economist at the University of California, Davis
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