Labour mobility: A win-win-win model for trade and development Labour migration, if well managed, can be a factor of development and growth for developing and least developed countries. This role is now widely recognized among governmental, non governmental and international organizations. Migration-for-employment is no longer simply perceived as means towards alleviating poverty by increasing capital and skills transfers. Beyond remittances, labour migration today has the potential, especially if circular, of transforming developing countries into knowledge economies by raising skill levels, increasing the competitiveness of the workforce, fostering entrepreneurship by Diaspora and return migrants and strengthening global networks such as joint-ventures between host and sending country firms, as evidenced in India, Mexico, Mali, the Philippines, South Korea, Senegal and Thailand. What needs to be done specifically, and an indication of the appropriate sequencing, will emerge from an analysis of the country and sector specific constraints to open more channels for labour migration and facilitate intra-corporate transferees from a multinational’s subsidiary in the South to its headquarters in the North. An assessment of the country’s workforce’s competitive advantage on the global labour market and for specific sectors in demand is necessary in particular with respect to skill levels, recognition and accreditation of non-formal qualifications and the reliability of workers. A proactive migration policy of the source country investing in education and training of workers for the global labour markets is to be matched by a corresponding commitment of the host country for setting up government-run employment and recruitment agencies. Finally, a sustainable and ethical return and reintegration strategy for temporary migrant workers must form part and parcel of both the host and source country migration policies. The need to move towards more private sector-oriented approaches to labour mobility (intra-corporate transferees, pre-employment training) is increasingly taken into account by governments in devising their migration, trade and investment strategies. Governments and the development community together with the private sector can facilitate labour mobility by: 1. Establish mutual trust among policy makers in host and source countries through a migration dialogue including the private sector for experimenting with labour market openings even if in exchange for cooperation in combating unauthorized migration. 2. Provide policy makers with regulatory framework at international, regional, local and administrative levels to seek out issue-linkages beyond traditional or classic migration policies of readmission in exchange for development aid. Facilitate comprehensive migration partnerships offering trade facilitation in services and goods, visa relaxations, labour market access or employment of (return) migrants within development projects, training opportunities or judicial and policy cooperation in exchange for readmission and reintegration of unauthorized migrants to ensure the inclusiveness of trade and development and migration policies. 3. Establish institutions for providing foreign labour recruitment advisory services to small and medium enterprises in the host country with a view to overcoming their limited resources with regards to selecting, recruiting training of foreign workers in comparison to those of large and well-endowed enterprises. An important facilitating role in construing a Win-Win-Win Model for Labour Migration is taken up by Win-Wininternational and non-governmental organizations providing technical support for recruitment, selection and hiring assistance to policy makers, as well as enterprises desiring to recruit migrant workers and would-be migrant workers as well, creating a holistic approach in which all stakeholders can benefit. This approach can be captured around eleven levels of interventions interventions: o Integrate labour mobility strategies into national migration and trade policies and international programmes As a new instrument of trade-led growth labour mobility already is integrated within regional trade agreements, yet often conditioned upon signing onto labour standards, economic necessity tests and standardized qualification requirements. Governments could make better use or improve the design of GATS 1/5 An initiative of IDEAS Centre
commitments and Poverty Reduction Strategies to facilitate labour market access or cross-border services supply by natural persons (employed personnel, contractual workers and professionals) which has the advantage over development aid insofar as it permits and relies on private sector participation and involvement in managing the challenge of labour migration. o Operationalize the new bilateral or regional tools of mobility-or migration partnerships Encourage host and source country governments to embed their migration strategies into new partnerships for an all-inclusive approach to migration, trade, development, security—and balancing of interests in a mutually beneficial manner: Host country responsibility for upgrading the skill level of migrant workers, for recognizing their formal and non-formal qualification requirements would be shared with responsibility of the sending country for the reliability of the migrant workforce, the legality of their employment, their entry and stay—and, if necessary could be backed up by a readmission commitment for illegal entrants, overstays which the host country would match with corresponding commitment for combating root causes in the sending country – poverty, unemployment, job destruction or displacement. o Promote mutually beneficial effects of labour migration for both host and source countries through awareness raising programmes and information campaigns Migrant labour can lead to productivity gains in the host country when it reduces the costs of certain services, such as medicine and healthcare, or when it creates complementary employment and businesses in the host country and stimulates, through increasing societal diversity and mixity of skills, its innovation potential. o Support policy makers in identifying and strengthening global competitive advantage of their workforce Countries of origin should be encouraged by international or non-governmental organizations to identify services sectors, where their workers dispose of a global comparative advantage in skills and human capital, yet efforts at training workers for such employment abroad must be balanced off with enhancing strategies at retaining skills at home. Economic evidence from Southeast Asia has shown that countries of origin benefit most from labour migration, if proactive policies to attract back migrant with skills acquired or upgraded abroad are adopted. o Support policy makers in identifying additional avenues for legal recruitment of foreign workforce The goal is to encourage more labour market openings by host countries (either through quotas or special visa categories, including circular, multiple entry schemes), coupled with appropriate flanking policies, such as pre-employment training requirements, mutual recognition of formal and non-formal qualification requirements, sustainable return and reintegration programmes. Inversely, source countries are encouraged to develop a sense of ownership for the challenges and opportunities of labour migration. Opening channels for labour migration can minimize irregular entries or overstays to the benefit of host country governments, civil society and the migrant workers. Increasing the opportunities for lawful employment abroad improves the migrant workers’ rights protection, thus leading to more regular remittances flows, which in turn can reduce poverty in sending countries. o Encourage Private Sector to Strengthen International Competitiveness of Workforce through IntraCorporate Transfers In a trade-based approach to labour migration, the private sector can contribute to strengthening the international competitiveness of the workforce through cross-border intra-corporate subsidiary-toheadquarter labour mobility of local workforce. Use the potential of multilateral GATS mode 3 and mode 4 openings of developing countries to promote private-sector based labour mobility (intra-corporate transferrals), whereby a globally operating multinational investing in that country is required to offer the developing country workforce the possibility to move from the subsidiary to the headquarter for skillupgrades. Pre-employment training may also be attached to mode 3 or mode 4 openings. Invest in vocational training and professional education will lead to higher skill levels of the domestic workforce, which in turn will attract more foreign and domestic investment-in-services. o Develop Capacity of Small and Medium Enterprises to offer Pre-Employment Training to Migrant Workforce International organizations can facilitate actual recruitment processes and ensure their fair, orderly, safe and ethical conduct. They often provide assistance to voluntary returns and reintegration in the countries of origin.
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o Explore stay-at-home strategies encouraging cross-border sourcing of services to local workforce Stay-at-home strategies for retaining skills, preventing out-migration and counterweighing the drying out of local human resources is increasingly becoming a key tool in migration, trade and development policies of both source and host countries, which needs to be translated into concrete actions and explorative pilot programmes. Fostering the global competitiveness of the workforce, designing of career opportunities and flexible employment at home can be a government strategy. The private sector also needs to be encouraged to source services and economic free zones, but to couple their creation with local requirements for multinational companies to employ domestic workforce are one option to. o Strengthen Diaspora involvement and knowledge transfer in creating employment and supporting return migrants entrepreneurship A trade and migration linkage strengthens the role of the Diaspora and empowers the individual migrant as the main factor of development through migration, be it in sending remittances back home, brokering a joint venture between a host country firm and a source country enterprise or becoming him or herself an entrepreneur upon return or during a legal stay abroad. Governments retain a crucial managerial role in this process of balancing the different stakeholders activities, yet sharing the responsibility for migration becomes easier if resources, competencies and can be distributed over more than one theme, (development, border security, labour market, education and employment, trade) allocated between more than one government agency. o Strengthen government-designed reintegration and return programmes Access to micro-credit for entrepreneurial return migrants is not enough and has not always worked effectively towards reintegration of return migrants. More programmes need to be designed and promoted by countries of origin in joint responsibility with host countries for guaranteeing the employment of migrants upon their return in their country of origin. These programmes should form a mutually binding commitment that host and source countries can enforce through bilateral or regional migration management agreements. International organizations will often provide assistance to voluntary returns and reintegration in the countries of origin. The voluntary and assisted return of temporary migrant workers is often a precondition for host countries to agree to open their labour markets on a quota basis to source countries. The goal is to encourage the mutual responsibility of host and source country governments to design reintegration and return programmes, which ideally encourage the private sector in countries of origin to specifically tap into return migrants’ skills acquired abroad. o Support migrant workforce acting as brokers of joint ventures and foreign direct investment through creating business linkages and partnerships between host and source country Migrants’ networks in the various host countries can facilitate and broker foreign and diasporic investment into their home country and the individual worker’s purchasing power facilitates trade liberalization in goods and services between the two countries, eventually leading to strengthened bilateral trade relations concretizing into a free trade agreement, a bilateral investment treaty. CaseCase-study: Senegal The International Organization for Migration (IOM) with the input of the World Trade Institute and the FES together with local, regional and international stakeholders formulated a labour mobility for development strategy and proposed to design or upgrade several labour recruitment abroad, but also reintegration and return projects in the biofuel, tourism, agro-processing sectors of Senegal aimed at The overall goal of the project is to contribute to social and economic growth, poverty alleviation and human capital development through strengthening the international competitiveness of the Senegalese workforce, but also the sustainability of their return and reintegration. The Senegal integrated project illustrates how additional labour market openings of host countries can be optimized by the private sector creating opportunities for intra-corporate labour mobility and sustained by a return and reintegration strategy of the sending country within a trade and services market-oriented approach to human capital development.
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LEVEL
EXPECTED OUTPUTS Labour market openings in bilateral migration management agreements and policies unilateral policies - Operationalize access quotas for 108 professions circular mobility visas, skills professions, and competency visas in the 2008 covenant agreement between France and Senegal - Use Article 5 of the France—Senegal agreement of 2006 aiming to train Senegalese migrants desiring to return to Senegal and who have been selected by immigrant associations in France in French technical colleges in the field of agriculture or fisheries, so that the can acquire the necessary skills for developing an economic activity in the rural areas of Senegal. - Operationalize Article 3 of the 2006 agreement between Senegal and France: Centre pour les Etudes en France (CEF) in coordination with a manpower agency monitored by the Senegalese government, will run an Internet site with job offers for public and private sector employment in Senegal but also put enterprises and employers in France in touch with young professionals in Senegal seeking to work abroad - Clarify use of labour market access quotas in the Spain—Senegal agreement of Spain— 2007: conditional to readmissions, one-time offer only? - Use additional labour recruitment openings of Art. 30 Swiss Federal Law on Foreigners and existing traineeship bilateral agreements - REVA (Retours des immigrés vers l’agriculture, plan co-founded by the EU and plan) Spain in the context of Senegal’s government-run REVA programme strengthened especially ENDA and Tenerifa Regional Council section for jatropha biofuel production by return migrants Intralabour Intra-corporate labour mobility, labour recruitment and prospecting missions by private sector - Multinational enterprises operating from Senegal (Accelor Mittal, Jebel Ali Free Accelor Zone operator) provide for intra-corporate labour mobility from subsidiary in Senegal to HQs in Europe, Asia, Gulf region - Caravane des PMEs business contacts established by Senegalese workers abroad to draw foreign direct investment into Senegal or to stimulate jointventures between a host country firm employing Senegalese migrant workers and small and medium-sized enterprises in Senegal: tourism, food processing, and information and communication technologies - Link foreign direct investment in infrastructure (Grands Projets to job creation Grands Projets) for Senegalese workers to prevent outmigration of Senegalese and to encourage return migrants who have acquired skills abroad: APIX (Senegal’s investment promotion agency) - Evaluate, then replicate prospecting missions of Spanish multinationals (Acciona, Carrefour, McDonald’s, VIPs, Barcelo Group, Air Europa to select and Acciona, Europa) recruit migrant workers in Senegal and to possibly co-finance the five vocational training centres (escuelas talleres) in Senegal - Encourage Diaspora in France to use the Fonds de Solidarité Prioritaire (FSP) to move temporarily to Senegal to offer training, education or to otherwise engage in knowledge transfer
MacroMacro-level – Policymakers in Senegal, France, Spain, Switzerland
MesoMeso-level – Foreign Investors in Senegal, Diaspora
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Stay-atStay-at-home employment opportunities, skill upgrade and improvement of competitiveness of Senegalese workforce: MicroMicro-level – (Return) Migrant & Diaspora Networks & SMEs - Gie Tekki fi ci Sénégal (“to succeed here in Senegal”) is an economic interest Sénégal association set up by return migrants to prevent others from leaving, strengthened and cooperates with migrant networks in Spain, France, Switzerland with support of IOM or an NGO - FENATRAMS (Fédération Nationale des Femmes Transformatrices et Micromareyeuses du Sénégal) - Recognition of professional qualifications and accreditation of work experience and apprenticeships in the informal sector, artisanal sector (textile, clothing, arts& crafts)
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