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.
Win-Win-
An important facilitating role in construing a Win-Win-Win Model for Labour Migration is taken up by
international 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
interventions:
can be captured around eleven levels of 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 Intra-
Corporate 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-to-
headquarter 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 skill-
upgrades. 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 pre-
condition 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.
Case-study: Senegal
Case-
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
professions,
- Operationalize access quotas for 108 professions circular mobility visas, skills
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
Macro-
Macro-level – monitored by the Senegalese government, will run an Internet site with job
offers for public and private sector employment in Senegal but also put
Policymakers in Senegal, enterprises and employers in France in touch with young professionals in
France, Spain, Switzerland Senegal seeking to work abroad
Spain—
- Clarify use of labour market access quotas in the Spain—Senegal agreement of
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
plan)
- REVA (Retours des immigrés vers l’agriculture, plan co-founded by the EU and
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
Intra- labour
Intra-corporate labour mobility, labour recruitment and prospecting missions by
private sector
Accelor
- Multinational enterprises operating from Senegal (Accelor Mittal, Jebel Ali Free
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 joint-
ventures between a host country firm employing Senegalese migrant workers
Meso-
Meso-level – and small and medium-sized enterprises in Senegal: tourism, food processing,
and information and communication technologies
Foreign Investors in Grands Projets)
- Link foreign direct investment in infrastructure (Grands Projets to job creation
Senegal, Diaspora 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, Europa)
(Acciona, Carrefour, McDonald’s, VIPs, Barcelo Group, Air Europa to select and
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
4/5
Stay-at-
Stay-at-home employment opportunities, skill upgrade and improvement of
competitiveness of Senegalese workforce:
Micro-level –
Micro- Sénégal
- Gie Tekki fi ci Sénégal (“to succeed here in Senegal”) is an economic interest
association set up by return migrants to prevent others from leaving,
strengthened and cooperates with migrant networks in Spain, France,
(Return) Migrant &
Switzerland with support of IOM or an NGO
Diaspora Networks & SMEs
- FENATRAMS (Fédération Nationale des Femmes Transformatrices et Micro-
mareyeuses 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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