According to one, migrants play a vital role in the global economy by filling essential jobs abroad and sending much-needed remittances to their home countries. Report released on Monday By International Labor Organization.
The report has been released as President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to deport millions of undocumented immigrants from the United States. During his presidential campaign, he accused them of draining economic resources and taking jobs away from Native Americans.
The ILO report states that migrants generally bring net economic benefits to the countries they enter and the countries they depart from.
“Migrants drive economic growth in destination countries, and they support home countries through their remittances and skills transfer,” Sukti Dasgupta, director of the ILO’s working conditions and equality department, told journalists at a briefing in Geneva on Monday. We do.”
Rafael Díaz de Medina, ILO’s chief statistician, said the report refutes claims by some that “migrants are taking people away.” [the] “Citizens’ jobs.”
“I would like to say that migrant workers often play specific roles in low-paid or specialized jobs and often as seasonal workers, and they complement rather than displace the national labor force.
“There may be competition in specific contexts, but we don’t actually have evidence of immigrants taking jobs away from citizens,” he said.
“In this report, migrants in the labor force include all foreign-born persons in the host country’s labor force who are employed or unemployed, regardless of their legal status in the country.” “Therefore, documented and undocumented, regardless of employment permission to the host country, are included in our figures.”
The report presents global and regional projections of migrants in the labor force to 2022, covering 189 countries and territories, representing 99% of the world’s population at that time.
Migrant labor force increases
The report said 167.7 million migrants were part of the international labor force by 2022, accounting for 4.7% of the workforce worldwide.
The report finds that the migrant global labor force has grown by more than 30 million since 2013, but notes that from 2019 to 2022, “the growth rate is expected to slow to less than one percent annually.” This is mainly attributed to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
While migration patterns have changed in some regions of the world, the ILO said the overall composition of migrant workers has remained relatively stable, with men making up about 61% and women 39%.
The report said about 68% of international migrants in the labor force were concentrated in high-income countries located in Northern, Southern and Western Europe, North America and the Arab States.
“Migrants were concentrated in high-income countries because of higher living standards and more job opportunities,” Dasgupta said, adding that most migrants work in the service sector.
“This is where we find 70 percent of all working migrants, and this is especially true for women,” she said.
Díaz de Medina said the estimates presented are based on a new and improved methodology that allows for a more detailed analysis than before.
In 2022, the ILO reported that more migrants faced a higher unemployment rate of 7.2% compared to a rate of 5.2% for non-migrants, with more migrant women than men out of work.
According to the report, “This disparity may be driven by factors such as language barriers, unrecognized qualifications, discrimination and limited child care options.”
Migrants and legal protection
Díaz de Medina stressed the importance of ensuring that migrant workers have access to social and labor protections and “are covered by the country’s labor laws, especially for domestic workers.”
Rather than being a burden on society, he said, migrant workers are a benefit and “are essential to the global economy, especially in certain sectors such as services, manufacturing and agriculture.”
“If there are major restrictions on the movement of migrant workers, there will be a shortage of workers in particular sectors in the destination countries,” he said.
Dasgupta agreed that migrants contribute significantly to host economies through taxes, social security payments and other means.
“Their employment to population ratio is often higher,” he said, adding that “migrants contribute more than they return, especially for second-generation migrants.”