ESCAP. International Labour Migration and Remittances between the Developing ESCAP Countries and the Middle East: Trends, Issues and Policies. Bangkok: United Nations Publication, 1987.206 pp.(Development Papers No.6)

In: The Pakistan development review: PDR, Band 28, Heft 1, S. 67-69

Abstract

Development Papers No.6 is a study of remittances generated by
the international migration of labour between the ESCAP region and the
Middle East. It is .~ based on six-country case studies, including
Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Philippines, Thailand and Korea. It is
divided into four main chapters on the following themes: patterns of
labour and remittance flows; impact of remittances on the domestic
economics of the labour-exporting economy; labour recruitment and
remittances procedures in the labour-exporting countries and the demand
patterns in the labourimporting countries; policies and administrative
measures of labour-exporting countries with regard to workers'
protection and welfare; control of remittances, coping with a reduced
demand for integrating the returned migrants; and the possibilities of
co-operation between the labour-exporting and the labour-importing
countries. International labour migration prior to 1970s was confmed
mainly to the western European countries and the migrants came mainly
from southern and eastern European countries. After the 1973 oil-price
hike and subsequent accumulation of oil revenues, the Middle Eastern
countries embarked on ambitious programmes of construction to accelerate
economic development. Since the scale of development process was beyond
the capacity of local manpower, there was a large flow of migrant labour
into the Middle East, mainly from the ESCAP region. Chapter 1 describes
the trends in labour-flows from the ESCAP region to different regions of
the world in the earlier period, and the sharp acceleration in this flow
to Middle East in the 1970s. Some aspects of the emigrating labour force
have a direct impact on the domestic economic and social development
process. This factor is highlighted in Section 2 of Chapter 1, which
shows that although large-scale emigration relieved unemployment
pressures in these countries, the exodous of semi-skilled and skilled
production workers created shortages of such labour in these economies.
This finding points to the need to take account of costs of training,
dislocation in production and selective wage pressures while counting
the benefits from labour emigration.