Note on
Managing Labour Migration in Asia
by
Yongyuth Chalmwong
As a globalization has become a way of
life people in any country in the world, the boundary of each country become
disappearing as result of movement of people across boundary become a common
phenomena. As we all know, migration in Asia has been influenced by the general
transformations that occurred at the economic, social and political levels.
Migration workers have increasingly become a structural component of Asian
economies. The rapid transformation economies have generated of highly skilled
workers. Both professional and technical workers that seem to enjoy a
comfortable level of protections and earning. But this is not always the case
for some countries still dependence on semi- and low-skilled migrant workers.
The broad majority of migration in Asia is unskilled workers whom they are
interceded by placement agencies both in the country of origin and the country
of destination. They have charged with increasing excessive costs and have
become problems in many sending countries. They are strictly temporary with
limit possibility of long term permanent integration. They are regulated,
abused and rights violation. In general, their occupations concentrate on
construction, SMEs, fisheries and related activities and services that tend to
receive low wage and little or no benefits.
Many migrants sending countries in Asia experienced very restrictive
migration policy from various receiving countries resulting in a wide spread
irregular or undocumented migration. Their irregular statuses put them at the
hands of unscrupulous private agencies, officials with limited chance to fight
back.
Other problems experienced by migrant
workers are:
1.
They may experience pre-departure abuse from unscrupulous
recruiters such as lacking information about working and living conditions, bad
contracts, lack of assistance on departure.
2.
They faced excessive high migration costs as results of
mal-practices of private recruitment agencies and bureaucratic procedures.
3.
They are exploited by work site abuses by receiving low
salaries, less benefit, working long hours, working under hazardous conditions,
lack of job security, poor health and safety. They are also lack of promotion,
and no access to training, limit chance to move, lack of rights to transfer
funds, lack of rights to family unification and advisory services.
4.
They experienced inadequate living amenities such as housing,
clean drinking water, medical care, etc. in receiving countries.
5.
Female migrant workers engage in international migration can
be particularly vulnerable when they work outside their home country. They may
face sexual harassment, abuse, and seclusion.
Management
of Migration: experiences from the past.
Now
a day, we admit that some countries in Asia are promoting trade and investment while allowing certain number of
immigration. We believe that emigration is capable of helping sending countries
to achieve certain degree of their development target such as Philippines, Indonesia, China, Thailand and Vietnam. Benefits are also quite noticeably in receiving countries, namely Singapore,
Malaysia, Taiwan and Hong Kong China and Thailand.
The crucial
point is that any future development of immigration policy in this region and
variation in immigration policy should be undertaken with a full appreciation
of both sending and receiving countries. It is aiming to maintain a good
relationships among ASEAN and/or APEC members in order to create a fair and
equitable to all potential immigrants and producing safeguard to those who
migrate.
So far, it has
been a vigorous controversy among migration countries about economic, social
and other consequences of such movement of people. As free trade areas start to
bare-faced in the next few years as commodities are expected to move quite
freely from one country to another but may not be the case for labour. Since
one would believe that no country on earth to which immigration is completely
free. However, there are not many countries still put restriction on racial and
political differences but rather focusing on economic and humanitarian
criteria. One would expect to see the dividing line between interregional
migration become blurred if beneficiary of such movement are fairly divided.
As mentioned
in early section, there has been evident that immigrants are often obliged to
work for lower pay, longer hours and worse condition than natives. They can not
compete with natives for jobs so their jobs are those which do not want by
natives. They do not allow set up union to fight for them. In short, there are
a rapid influx of foreign workers from under developed countries to developed
countries, it may cause undesirable problems and consequences economically,
socially and politically from both sides if such movement is not properly
managed by both sides.
Prospect for Better Management of Migration
There are
several issues that should bring up for discussions and debates so that
majority of migrant workers would benefits from such initiatives.
1)
How to come up with policy and measure among participating country to protect
basic human. Proper management may have to cover the following.
·
Considering of follow
international labor standards
·
Considering of ratify
international conventions on migrant workers.
·
Strictly enforcement of laws to
employers and/or intermediaries, not targeting just the workers.
2) How to monitor migration flow in the
regions base on equal partners participation.
·
Who should be responsible for
regional creation of monitoring system?
·
How to interact among
researchers and policy makers in gathering the data, sharing the information.
·
How to build a cooperation
among receiving and sending countries and international agencies who are
interested in the similar issues.
·
How to come up with financial
support for the continuation of research on migration issues, and cooperation.
3) How to improve the existing and new
initiatives of regional and bilateral cooperation and agreements.
·
How to make use of existing
organizations such as ASEAN, APEC, and ASEM to come up with periodic
consultations and information gathering to address these issues.
·
How to strengthen the existing
initiatives such as Bangkok Declaration.
·
How to promote networking among
parties involved with migration both sending and receiving countries.
4) How to remedy problems of illegal
migrants, trafficking of women and children.
·
Should bilateral and
multilateral agreement be made among sending and receiving countries to remedy
the problems of illegal migrants together?
·
Can we strengthen the implementation
of technical cooperation for dealing with all of trafficking issues?
ANNEX
Profile of
Migration Flow of Selected Countries in Asia
As we all know, migration has played
on important role in the economic dynamism of many countries in Asia and Far East. It allows some countries to glow at
a faster rate than would have been possible with their limited supplies of
their workforce. Migration has made in possible to quickly meet shortages not
only at technical and managerial levels but also at the low skilled levels.
Many countries in Southeast Asia are net importers namely Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei Darussalam and Thailand. While countries in the Far East also have net import of labours,
namely Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan.
Among major net exporting countries are Philippines, China, Indonesia and Vietnam.
The
fast growing economy that has historically relied on import of foreign labour
to meet shortages of unskilled labour, especially in the early stages of
infrastructure development in Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia and
Brunei. Shortage of unskilled labour in plantation of Malaysia
resulting in importing workers from Indonesia
and Thailand. Construction and ship-building caused Singapore
to reliance on foreign workers from Indonesia,
Philippines, and Thailand but has taken a very strict immigration policy to discourage
continue to relied on low skilled workers.
Thailand
experienced both exporting and importing of labour notably illegal workers from
neighboring countries to work in Rubber and oil palm plantations, fishery,
animal farms, housemaids and etc. Industrial and services expansion during the
past twenty years created numerous employment opportunities especially in the
central part of the country. This resulted in labour shortages in medium and
large-scale plantations for low skilled workers. The very large proportion of
low skilled migration flow to Thailand
has been induced by wide income (wage) differentials and internal political
conflicts in Myanmar. The Thai government has spent more than five years to manage the
clandestine workers from neighboring countries but so far, she has not been
very successful.
Malaysia
experienced both skilled labour exports to Singapore
and much larger unskilled and semi-skilled workers from Indonesia,
Philippines, and Thailand. There were a lot of clandestine workers entering Malaysia.
There were concentrated on agricultural plantation, informal sector,
construction domestic services, and SMEs. The government seems to be very
concerned about inflow of illegal migrants notably Indonesian into the country.
Currently, the Malaysian government has tried to reduce the number of illegal
unskilled and semi-skilled workers by introducing very harsh policies. This
process is a part of undergoing change of economic structure toward higher
value added.
Singapore
has been a blue print for changing economic structure toward high value added
which having its impact on the characteristics of migratory flows and
associated immigration policy. Majority of foreign workers in Singapore
comes from the neighboring ASEAN countries, namely Indonesia,
Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand. The country always put pressure on industries to shift to higher
technology so that they can dependence less on foreign low skilled labourers.
The country has a clearly articulated policy on unskilled workers. A couples of
amnesties have been granted before tough laws were enacted. The basic trust of
the government remains unchanged. The government always welcome talent and high
qualifications by encouraging them to settle in Singapore,
but the government will ensure that their immigrants do not alter the present
ethnic compositions in the country’s population.
Brunei
Darussalam has been dependence on immigrant workers from ASEAN countries as well.
The migrant workers are mainly from Thailand,
Malaysia, Philippines, and Indonesia, working in construction, commerce and trade, oil industry and
services. The skilled workers are mainly from Hong Kong, China, Japan and
Malaysia. The national prefers to work in the public sector for the sake of
security while foreign labour tends to work in private sector.
Japan has
been a long time resisted pressure to import foreign labour and to implement
very strict immigration policy. This measure has forced Japanese domestic
industries to move up to high technology industries while relocating
labour-intensive industries to other countries. Japanese government accepts
foreign workers with professional abilities and technical skills. Certain
categories of foreign labour allow work
temporarily in Japan such as singers, dancers, sport players, language teachers, etc.
Few years ago, Japanese government allows Japanese affiliated company abroad to
bring in workers from foreign countries under trainee program. Right now the
Japanese government is still thinking about directly import foreign labour to
remedy its severe labour shortages in some sectors. Despite of having very
strict immigration policy, there have been a large number of clandestine
workers working in Japan, mostly from Asia.
Korea was
a pioneer of sending nurses and coalminers to Europe in the 1960s and
construction workers to the Middle East in the 1980s.Now , Korea has
become newly a industrialized country and has tried to implement a strict
immigration policy. The pressure to relocate industries overseas were evident
during 1990s and 2000s.The country has turned to net labour imported country.
Ten thousands of foreign workers have come to work in Korea as trainees under
their corporate exchange program while similar number of clandestine workers
working illegally in Korea in 3D jobs.
Taiwan in
recent years has an open-door policy for international migration. In 1990s
started with only three D workers in public construction projects. Currently, Taiwan
imports foreign laborers in various field notably housemaids, construction and
SMEs.
Hong Kong China has
experienced importing of foreign laborers for decades. It starts with highly
skilled technicians, professionals, managers and later on construction workers
for public project and domestic workers. The state also faces problem of
illegal immigrants especially from Mainland China.
The inspection activities have been increased to deter influx of illegal
migrants. Arrested of illegal immigrant are repatriated to China and
to country of origin.
Philippines has a long- standing involvement in contract labour emigrants for
many decades. Since 1970s, due to enormous out-flow the government has stepped
in to control administration and regulation of labour recruitment. This large
out-flow of contract workers have significant impact on balance of payments
through remittances. Workers are required to remit a proportion of their
earnings through the Central Bank controlled system.
Indonesia
has similar immigrant policy to other countries in ASEAN. The government has
supported the entry of highly skilled and professional workers who accompany
foreign investment. Similar to the Philippines the government has encouraged exporting of contract workers,
especially domestic helpers and low skilled workers.
Thailand
‘s policy on emigration is similar to the policies of Philippines and Indonesia. The government has encouraged unskilled and semi-skilled to seek
employment abroad. We are a major supply of contract workers to Taiwan,
other countries in Asia and Middle-East. At the same time, the immigration policy is trying
to learn from Malaysia and Singapore. We encouraged temporary stay of experts who accompanied
investment. Since Thailand has become a developing countries and has very impressive economic
development in the past, it attacks many unskilled and semi-skilled workers
from neighboring countries especially from Myanmar, Laos, and
Cambodia. This is resulted of million of clandestine workers working
illegally in Thailand all over the country. They were concentrated on agriculture and
related activities, construction, housemaids, etc.