The current ILO study published its fourth edition of the Global Estimates on International Migrant Workers that elaborated the important contribution of international migrants in the global labour market. Overall the report is an informative document outlining, the status of international migration current achievement of allotted goals of migrant workers and existing problems of their migration.
Key Findings
Based on the report, global migrants are 167.7 million comprising 4.7% of the total international workforce in 2022. It may cover employed and unemployed people that are willing to work, that are the main difference between two concepts. This report also indicated that International migrant workers have risen more than 30 million since 2013.
Yet again, the study establishes that women are less as compare to men in International migrant workers. About 61.3% of the male migrant had employment while only 38.7% of the female migrant had employment. However, the number of women and girls among migrants continues to grow since the ILO’s global estimates in 2015.
Employment Sectors
Also the service sector accounted for 68.4% of international migrants. This sector includes jobs in healthcare, hospitality, and other service-oriented industries. Female migrant workers constituted the largest proportions in this respect; 80.7 percent of women migrant workers were employed in service sector compared to only 60.8% of men.
In contrast, the industrial sector engaged 24.3 % of international migrants while 7.4 % worked in the agricultural Sector. The report also said that high income countries hosted the largest migrant population taking 68.4 percent of the global migrant workforce.
Age Distribution
The report provides insights into the age distribution of international migrant workers. The prime-age migrant workers, those aged 25-54 years, accounted for the largest majority at 74.9 percent or 125.6 million. International migrant workers constitute 215 million of the global population, with young migrant workers those aged between 15 and 24 years accounting for 9.3% and number 15.5 million. Migrants aged between 55 and 64 years accounted for 12.5%, while those above 65 years represented 3.4%.
Regional Distribution
It also analyses where in the region international migrant workers are located. Developed countries received the highest number of international migrant receiving 68.4% of migrants. Of the migrant workforce, 17.4% comes from upper-middle-income countries. The valued report has revealed that the international migrant employment rate in Northern, Southern and Western Europe was at 23.3% and, in Northern America it was 22.6%.
Challenges and Opportunities
Based on the findings of the ILO, it is admitted that there are problems associated with international migrant workers, employment deficits in some host countries and the necessity to transfer money to the country of origin. Many of these aspects have been highlighted in the report in order to stress the need in tackling the challenges so that the economic benefits of the migrant workers could be realized.
Increased Migration from Developing Countries: Causes and Implications
Overall it can be observed that the migration from developing countries has been in focal point on recent decades due to economic, social, and political reasons. This movement affects the country of origin and the destination country in a very special way. However, the following part looks at the primary factors triggering this enhanced migration and the factors that lead towards this reality.
Economic Factors
- Search for Better Jobs: the major factor is the focus to look for better employment opportunities for which developing countries have become a major point of attraction for migrants. The job opportunities are competed, and hardworking people receive little pay, especially in most developing countries. This economic stagnation means people have to get better paid employment in the advanced countries financially. With the more advanced nations having stricter requirements for employment and generally being able to offer better wages and working conditions, these nations pull a relatively large number of immigrants seeking better quality lifestyles.
- Remittances: International migrant remittance i.e. the money transfer by migrant to household in their country of origin, are crucial in developing world economies. These funds help families for basic needs, education, and health care needs. This in itself creates the encouragement for the people to travel, no matter how treacherous and strenuous the journey maybe just to earn and send money back home.
Social Factors
- Education and Skill Development: Education and training is the other factors that compel people to migrate; this is in the aspect of receiving better education to enable them acquire better training. The process of migration also occurs when people move to developed countries to study and undertake professional training since those courses may not be offer in their countries. Many a time these educational access lead to improved employment opportunities and improved standards of living back home; a factor that compounds the desire to leave one’s own country.
- Family Reunification: Family reunification migration is, without doubt, one of the most important social drivers that still exist today. Most migrant have relatives there who believe in the dreams of seeing developed countries. The hope to get back to their families and perhaps to help improve the standards of living of their children leads to migration. This has been made possible due to policies in host countries that encourage family-reunification legal migration.
Political Factors
- Conflict and Persecution: Conflict, persecution and political instability are key reasons as to why people move from one place to another. Most of the developing nations face political instabilities; wars and some even unleash horrible atrocities against their own people; this makes them to over flow their homeland in the process of searching safer places for their lives. People who become refugees and asylum seekers migrate to developed countries because they expect to get protection there.
- Government Policies: Migration flows depend not only on the policies put in place in the source and destination countries. Some of the developing countries today have policies that really lock out the economic freedoms and others go as far as encouraging people to emigrate from their country for various reasons such as reducing pressure on resources among other. The destination nations with liberal laws of immigration and with strong doors to citizenship tend to experience more immigration.
Environmental Factors
- Climatic Change and Natural Disasters: Other factors like climate change and natural disasters have also emerged strongly as major pulling factors for migration. Climate change bring about displacement hence forced migration particularly in the developing nations as they are most affected by the effects such as; sea level rise, droughts and extreme weather conditions. Migrants look for livelihood in stronger countries; most often in countries that are more developed.
Health Factors
- Access to Healthcare: Healthcare is an important reason that people migrate to different regions or countries. Most developing nations have weak health facilities, and as such people are forced to travel to developed countries for better health services. This is especially so for patients with certain diseases, or any patient who requires certain forms of treatment that are not available in their home country.
Technological Factors
- Connectivity and Information: Through a technological and communication outlook, migration has been made easy and bearable. Ease of access to information through the internet and mobile phone reach enable prospective migrants to search for opportunities in other countries, associate with fellow migrants’ groups as well as make better decisions in view of migration. This connectivity lowers the vagueness and the cost related with migration hence increasing the flows.
Implications and Challenges
This trend of migration from the developing countries has great impact on migration and non-migration outcomes of the sending and the receiving countries. A obvious advantage of remittances is that the amount received acts as a sort of economic support for families in developing nations; the negative is that skilled workers are emigrating and thus stunting the growth of their respective economies. On the other hand, the countries that received the qualified labor have advantages in terms of supply of cheap labor but the country may face problems by the integration issues, social services, and politico-structural issues.
The International Labour Organization (ILO): Champion of Workers' Rights
The ILO is a specialized agency of the United Nations with a fundamental mission to promote social justice and fundamental workers’ and human rights around the world. Founded nearly a century ago in 1919 at Versailles Peace Conference to address issues of war-torn Europe’s labor condition, ILO stands as one of the original institutions of the United Nations system and remains central to labor issues worldwide.
Origins and Mission
ILO was created at a time it embarked on the promotion of betterment of labor conditions, fair wages for workers, as well as social protection for workers across the world. Thus it was born, as the result of a realization of the fact that true and lasting peace and happiness and good cannot come, except through justice to all classes of society. The organization’s belief system is running on the fact “labor is not a commodity” which clearly mean that everyone should be treated with respect when at work.
Structure and Governance
The ILO operates under a special system which consists of a tripartite model, which means that policies and programs are developed with government’s participation together with employers’ and workers’ delegates. It facilitates achievement of the best solution that can favour all the stakeholders that are involved in the decision making process. The body charged with managing the ILO is the International Labour Conference which is tripartite in composition and which convenes annually for the purpose of making policy decisions, approving the budget and electing the Director-General.
Key Functions and Activities
The main activities of the ILO which is formulated by committees composed of member-countries are technical cooperation and normative advisory services, and as an information and knowledge institution undertaking research and analysis on labor matters. According to the organization, it has produced a range of conventions and recommendations that provide guidelines on different issues that affect the workforce such as the use of child labor, forced labor, discrimination and hazard detection and prevention within the workplace. These standards have been enacted as guidelines for National Labor laws and practices within an effort to provide the countries necessary assistance in enhancing working conditions.
Another of the ILO’s priorities is technical cooperation. It assists member states in the practical application of fundamental labor rights, enhancing the capacity of labour
institutions, the formulation of policies on employment and social protection and better working conditions. This support comprises of capacity enhancement programs, capacity development, training as well as technical assistance programs for individual countries.
Global Impact
The ILO does not just operate at the level of policy and technical cooperation. This organization also carries out research that covers the labor market, protection and employment policies. Its major publications include the World Employment and Social Outlook, the Global Wage Report etc., in which it disseminates useful information on trends and patterns of the global employment market.
The ILO has also equally sought to respond to modern day labour issues like the growing gig economy, future of work particularly through the increase in use of technology in the labour market including automation etc. The ILO has developed ways of examining how and where new technologies will alter labor markets, and of driving forward change policies for good employment and social protection through such vehicles as the Future of Work centenary initiative and the Global Commission on the Future of Work.
The ILO strives on to be an effective organization fighting for and supporting social justice and workers of across the globe. The ILO is a tripartite organisation and focuses on regulating relations between governments, employers and unions to promote fair policies to the employees. As the world evolves ILO is also evolving and contributing towards the betterment of the labour force.