Literally Dying for 2022 World Cup: Migrants in Qatar

Just when you thought Qatar's 2022 World Cup could not get any more controversial after continuing debates about the procedure used to select the tiny state and the difficulties associated with hosting the event during the peak of summer in the desert, there's more: It is common knowledge that the bulk of Qatar's workforce is composed of migrants who do the 3-D (dirty, dangerous, difficult) while its few citizens enjoy air-conditioned insulation from the harsh desert environment. However, recent reports have brought to light just exactly what the human cost is on migrant workers.

The Guardian got--pardon the expression--the ball rolling by reporting on the death toll of Nepalese workers due to poor living and working conditions out in the blast furnace of the Arabian desert to put up mega-stadiums in time for the 2022 event:

This summer, Nepalese workers died at a rate of almost one a day in Qatar, many of them young men who had sudden heart attacks. The investigation found evidence to suggest that thousands of Nepalese, who make up the single largest group of labourers in Qatar, face exploitation and abuses that amount to modern-day slavery, as defined by the International Labour Organisation, during a building binge paving the way for 2022.

According to documents obtained from the Nepalese embassy in Doha, at least 44 workers died between 4 June and 8 August. More than half died of heart attacks, heart failure or workplace accidents. The investigation also reveals:

• Evidence of forced labour on a huge World Cup infrastructure project.
• Some Nepalese men have alleged that they have not been paid for months and have had their salaries retained to stop them running away.
• Some workers on other sites say employers routinely confiscate passports and refuse to issue ID cards, in effect reducing them to the status of illegal aliens.
• Some labourers say they have been denied access to free drinking water in the desert heat.
• About 30 Nepalese sought refuge at their embassy in Doha to escape the brutal conditions of their employment.

Der Spiegel then added fuel to the fire by suggesting that Indian workers are also dying of exploitation out in the desert so that the 2022 show may go on:

There are many indications that the 44 dead Nepalese are no exception. Following the revelations in the Guardian, the Indian ambassador reported that 82 Indian workers had died in the first five months of this year, and noted that 1,460 Indians had complained of poor working conditions. The International Trade Union Confederation [ITUC] fears that up to 4,000 workers could die in Qatar before the starting whistle is blown for the first match -- that is, if working conditions don't change.

The 4,000 worker deaths are an extrapolation of the current rate of fatalities being incurred by South Asian workers in Qatar over ten years. Moreover, ITUC argues that Qatar's efforts are in vain since the structure of migrant construction labor is fundamentally abusive:

"The labour inspection system in Qatar has failed, and the government's announcement would simply add some inspectors into a system that doesn't work and will not make a difference," said Sharan Burrow, the ITUC general secretary. "Workers are not able to speak freely as, under the strict visa sponsorship system, employers retain their passports and they are not allowed to change jobs or leave the country without the employer's permission."

Alike nearly all other migrant-receiving states, Qatar has not signed up to the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. Hence, Qatar's critics are applying pressure on Qatar being a signatory in another ILO convention concerning forced labor:

Qatar is failing to fully implement an international convention banning the use of forced labour ahead of the 2022 football World Cup, the United Nations' International Labour Organisation (ILO) has warned. Azfar Khan, the ILO's senior labour migration adviser in the Arab states, told the Guardian that despite pledges to do otherwise Qatar did not properly inspect workplace conditions and there was "no coherence" in the state's policies over the use of migrant labour.

"The onus is on the Qataris if they have ratified the convention to better implement it," he said. "Many of the abuses that take place which can lead to forced labour are still happening."

It is turning out to be a fiasco not only for football organizers but also for Qatar. The latter's image is receiving a battering that it's hard to imagine it will recover from in nine years' time. Isn't improving national reputation the goal of the whole enterprise? Qatar seems to be losing sight of it very badly.

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Singapore Needlessly Discriminates Against Expats

The cute (and very rare) Singapore baby

Here's another interesting feature about the politics of migration being waged right here in Southeast Asia. One of the reasons why the People's Action Party of (PAP) Singapore lost 40% of the popular vote in the 2011 elections is frustration over foreigners purportedly taking away plum jobs, scarce housing and using public services, leaving its citizens to seethe. It even seems its losses are widening. In response, the PAP has ushered in curbs on hiring foreigners--a "Singapore for Singaporeans" sort of policy. With anger not yet subsiding, the government is now seeking to advertise openings first to locals as a policy response:

Singapore will widen foreign-worker curbs to professional jobs as the government clamps down on companies that hire overseas talent at the expense of citizens, stepping up efforts to counter a backlash against immigration.

The Southeast Asian nation said yesterday it will set up a job bank where companies are required to advertise positions to Singaporeans before applying for so-called employment passes for foreign professionals. The unprecedented policy will target jobs that currently pay at least S$3,000 ($2,400) a month, an amount that will be raised to S$3,300 by January. 

In case you're curious, the unemployment rate in Singapore is 2.1%--3% for Singaporeans. While it is minuscule by Western standards, Singaporeans are apparently not keen to compare themselves with the old world:

The job bank will be set up by mid-2014, the Ministry of Manpower said in a statement yesterday. Companies with 25 or fewer employees will be exempt from the new rules, as well as jobs that pay a fixed monthly salary of S$12,000 or more, it said. The cap was set as that would include 95 percent of the local workforce, it said.

“This is a step up from the government’s efforts to tighten the quality and the quantity of the foreign worker inflows,” said Chua Hak Bin, an economist at Bank of America Corp. in Singapore. “We’re moving to another phase now where they’re looking to ensure that opportunities for the middle-income Singaporeans are maintained.”

The nation’s unemployment rate rose to 2.1 percent in the second quarter, with the resident jobless rate at about 3 percent. That “translates to 50,000, 60,000 Singaporeans without jobs,” Tan, the minister, said. “What the regime allows is that there may be a better matching of demand and supply” between companies and job-seekers, he said. 

At any rate, I am convinced that there is nothing structurally amiss with immigration to Singapore for the very simple reason that its total fertility rate is well below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman. It has not reached that level since 1976. Barring migrants wholesale would result in depopulation in quite short order since its current total fertility rate is 1.2:

My take is that there is currently slack in Singapore's mostly white-collar labor market due to a number of factors such as reduced hiring in service sectors alike banking post-global financial crisis. These will soon even out, though, easing complaints from locals that foreigners are "stealing their jobs" and so forth. Natalist policies haven't exactly born fruit.  Make no mistake: Singapore's real problem in the medium- to long-term is not having too many people, but having too few of them. (Cue Barbra.)

PS: Besides, isn't Singapore supposed to be the world's most adaptive nation?

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US Now Sends More Immigrants to Mexico

What would Cheech and Chong do about the United States now sending more migrants to Mexico than Mexico sends to the United States? That comedy act is stuck in a time warp where the supposedly backward Mexico always sends its unwashed masses to the United States in search of employment. So are today's uniquely Amerocentric debates about whether to give amnesty to illegal immigrants. Wake up to today's North American reality, boys and girls: On balance, the United States has sent more people to Mexico than vice-versa over the most recently recorded five-year period. The graphic above is from the New York Times, which also offers the thought-provoking companion article about how the real land of opportunity is Mexico:

Rising wages in China and higher transportation costs have made Mexican manufacturing highly competitive again, with some projections suggesting it is already cheaper than China for many industries serving the American market. Europe is sputtering, pushing workers away. And while Mexico’s economy is far from trouble free, its growth easily outpaced the giants of the hemisphere — the United States, Canada and Brazil — in 2011 and 2012, according to International Monetary Fund data, making the country more attractive to fortune seekers worldwide [...]

The shift with Mexico’s northern neighbor is especially stark. Americans now make up more than three-quarters of Mexico’s roughly one million documented foreigners, up from around two-thirds in 2000 [my emphasis], leading to a historic milestone: more Americans have been added to the population of Mexico over the past few years than Mexicans have been added to the population of the United States, according to government data in both nations.

In previous posts I've covered how Mexico is increasingly becoming the North American economic dynamo contrary to outdated beliefs that it is merely an entry route for drugs to the USA or a perennial source of migrants. The implications are meaningful and interesting. First, the emergence of Mexico as a manufacturing hub in the Americas challenges China's role as factory to the world given the latter's geographic disadvantage. Second, the US Census folks do not--and probably cannot--account for such migratory shifts as nearby countries become more progressive than the United States. Hence, expectations that declines in US birth rates will be more than compensated for by migration to the US are probably overstated. Detroitification or depopulation of the US is a very real threat if so. Third, it does bother me that the rest of the world so easily imbibes American prejudices about Mexicans when the latter hold the better cards in today's global political economy.

Make no mistake: the real Americans us folks from the developing world are better off emulating are probably those south of the border with their young, dynamic and manufacturing-savvy economy. Their football team may be doing poorly at the moment, but hey, I would readily forego the World Cup finals for a place at the top of the World Economy league table. Go south, young Yank, go south--but learn Spanish before you do.

Things change, my dear. At this rate I may be laughing my head off hearing Mexican policymakers debating what to do with all those Yanqui "illegals" in a few years' time.

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Demographic Consequences of US Economic Stagnation

US Labor Force Participation Rate

In development theory, there is thing called the "demographic transition" which argues that birth rates should diminish as a country becomes wealthier and more urbanized. Instead of "spreading their bets" by having many children in the hopes that at least one will succeed and be able to take care of them in their old age, wealthier folks believe that having fewer children endowed with high "human capital" via education and so on will better guarantee their success. It is also more difficult to have large families in households where both parents work and in cities where living costs and living space are at a premium. Moreover, the introduction of social safety nets such as pensions lessened the need for privately planning for retirement.

OK, so that's the theory, and it's held up quite well over the years. However, many developed countries are now entering a twilight zone characterized by vanishing economic prospects and diminished expectations for the future where most believe that the standard of living of future generations will be lower than current generations for obvious reasons. In the face of such difficulties, could a "reverse demographic transition" occur in which parents have more children again to assure them that at least one will make it and help provide for them in their old age?

Well, no. The United States provides some insights. Actually, the total fertility rate--the number of children a woman bears--fell to 1.89 in 2012. This is well below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman. In other words, if this trend continues, the United States will indeed suffer from depopulation, "Detroitification," unless migration can compensate. Looking into Census figures, it is indeed the case that current projections the US population will reach 420 million in 2060 are predicated on large-scale increases in migration. (Read the fine print.) In the absence of migration reform, though, I am not certain that the politics will necessarily be in place for that to happen.

All this brings us to the likely culprit for birth decline. Simply put, there are few jobs out there in America right now, and most of those which are available are of the low-skilled variety. Yes, the US has become a nation of burger flippers--employment statistics amply demonstrate that. With low-paying, short-lasting jobs becoming the norm, couples do not have enough security in raising families. Wages have been falling for over a decade, and there is little reason to believe they will rise significantly anytime soon. I disagree with Paul Krugman about the causes of this poor job situation--which is actually much worse when you account for women joining the labor force in large numbers in recent decades. Still, we can agree that America is, well, doomed.

How exactly a nation of burger flippers whose young people struggle just to find jobs of ever-decreasing remuneration is going to support droves of greedy seniors is beyond me. So is the point of higher education if all you will do is flip burgers for that matter.

Let us end with migration: something the Census does not sufficiently account for IMHO is the rising affluence of any number of traditional migrant-sending countries and other LDCs. Given better prospects of finding work there compared to the US (where there are few), I would expect net migration to move closer to zero. As bad as things are now, they can get worse.

Oh by the way, do you want fries with that?

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Depopulation or the Detroitification of Japan

There is a spectre haunting the developed world--the spectre of Detroitification. (Take that, Marx and Engels!) It involves depopulation and industrial hollowing out destroying the tax base of locales barely able to provide basic public services. Aside from the highly questionable logic of Japan incurring more debt to "cure" problems arguably caused by an oversized debt overhang, I have a more fundamental doubt about its economy moving forward. Simply, demographics dictate that an ever-shrinking population places nearly-insurmountable pressure on enfeebling the economy. Too many seniors drawing on too many benefits compared to too few working-age persons--it's a bad situation only set to get worse:

The estimate shows that Japan’s population in 2040 will stand at 107.276 million, a decline of about 20 million from 2010′s 128.057 million. A January 2012 estimate by the same [National Institute of Population and Social Security Research] institute had shown that in 2060, Japan’s population will number 86.737 million, about 30 percent less from the 2010 level.

Japan has been experiencing a natural population decrease since 2007, with annual deaths topping births. In 2011, the total fertility rate — the average number of babies a woman gives birth to during her life — was 1.39. A total fertility rate of 2.07 is required to maintain population levels. Although the public sector has been taking steps to make it easier for women to have more children, it will be extremely difficult to improve the situation.

While industrial stagnation is perhaps less evident in Japan at the moment, the fiscal implications of these hollowed-out societies remain the same. There are already signs of Detroit-esque lapses in the provision of public services emerging:

The progress in the graying of the nation means that the need for social services for residents such as medical and nursing care services will increase. The population decrease means that the nation’s total tax revenues will decline. As a result, grants from the central government to local governments will diminish. Both the central and local governments must find ways to overcome the imbalance between revenues and outlays. It will become all the more important for both the public and private sectors to increase chances for women to fully utilize their abilities in the workforce.

The effects of a population decrease are already being felt. Cases in which road bridges have been closed to traffic because of a lack of funds for maintenance and a drop in the number of users are increasing. Forests exist whose owners are now unknown. The number of vacant houses are increasing. Some municipalities have passed by-laws under which they will demolish vacant houses that have become dangerously dilapidated [my emphasis].

The spectre of Detroitification is hard to beat, and its footprints are unmistakeable.With current leader Shinzo Abe unwilling to consider meaningful migration reform as a solution thus far, it's the Motor City writ large and not Godzilla that's looming ominously in Japan's skyline.

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Money Printing Plus: Japan's Other Growth Strategies

Everyone knows of Japanese PM Shinzo Abe's money-printing strategies for combating Japan's seemingly unconquerable deflation. However, it is but one tactic in a multi-pronged strategy to get the world's third largest economy growing again in a noticeable fashion. Tomorrow Abe unveils a raft of other initiatives for doing so. Reuters has a list of expected steps in the so-called "Third Arrow of Abenomics" compiled from various news sources (don't ask me why it's called that).

Of particular interest to me are those concerning free trade agreements and migration. First, let's begin with FTAs. Belatedly keen on not losing its competitive advantage alongside those FTA-crazy South Koreans, it too is supposedly going to embark on an FTA frenzy:

Hit a target of 70 percent of exports covered by free trade deals by 2018, compared with around 19 percent, by pushing the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Economic Partnership (TPP) and other trade deals with the European Union, China and South Korea, and aim to create an Asia-Pacific free trade area. 

Insofar as Japan has virtually zero multilateral FTAs at present (only partially implemented Japan-ASEAN FTA aside) but a whole host of bilatereal FTAs, let's say it has a lot of work to do if it truly intends to compete with Korea in this respect. With Japan's strong agricultural lobby complicating matters, expect tense negotiations when these products are discussed. That said, it's interesting how Japan is not playing geopolitics if this were truly the case in being willing to join any sort of FTA negotiation whether it be led by the US (TPP), China or whomever.

Another point of interest is opening up Japan to migration. Its population is shrinking, yet it remains easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than to be an economic migrant to Japan. Or is that assertion about to be shattered?

Shorten the duration of stay in Japan required for approval of permanent residency to three years from five years to encourage high-skilled foreigners to keep working in the country.

Let's just say that Japan's come up with all sorts of plans to generate growth since 1990 that have since been shelved or have borne little fruit. 

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Neymar! Reducing Brazil's Football 'Trade Surplus'

It's time for another sporting feature since we haven't had one for quite some time now. Fortunately, there's interesting stuff courtesy of TIME Magazine about the changing complexion of "the beautiful game." Even if the Brazilian economy has cooled off markedly in recent times, it has had a strong run-up and most folks remain optimistic about its economy's future. Contrast its fate with that of the European football powerhouses that traditionally import South American players in droves--especially Portugal, Spain,and the United Kingdom--and you begin to understand the reduced "trade surplus" of Brazil sending away its best footballers time and again:

That progress is nowhere more evident than in Brazil's professional soccer league. It's no surprise that a country famously overabundant with superb players should export its surplus — some 1,500 a year leave for foreign leagues — but in recent years, there's been a spike in the number of returning players: more than 1,100 went home in 2012, up from 974 in 2008. Brazil's trade deficit in footballers narrowed to 315 last year from 556 in 2008. In large part, this is because the Brazilian league, just like its economy, has become more sophisticated and profitable. Not surprisingly, struggling Argentina, Brazil's great rival, is the world's leading exporter of soccer talent — its brightest star, four-time Ballon d'Or winner Lionel Messi, plays in Spain.

The latest Brazilian superstar is Neymar of the venerable Santos FC. He is the latest in a long line of players coming from that storied footballing country who can readily dribble the ball past myriad defenders with dazzling moves in the great tradition of Pele and his successors. Supposedly, the career trajectory of Brazilian stars went like this before:

Until the economic boom, the traditional arc of a Brazilian superstar's career ran thus: at 14, his talent was spotted by a local club; four years later, he was traded up to one of the smaller European leagues, like Portugal's, where his prodigious performances marked him as the Next Pelé; he had a couple of good seasons before a superclub like Real Madrid, AC Milan or Manchester United came calling. At Neymar's age, he was a full-blown global celebrity, with flashy cars, model girlfriends and big endorsement deals. If he had the right temperament — and durable knees — he could stay at the top of the European tree until his early 30s. Slowed by age, he then moved on to second-tier leagues, like Russia's or Turkey's, where he could still pull down a million-dollar salary; by 35, he was squeezing out the last few paydays playing in Qatar or Japan. 

That's Ronaldo, right? Nowadays, though, local clubs can afford to pay considerably higher wages with growth in the Brazilian economy in general and the league in particular. Management of these clubs is also becoming more professionalized, as are the medical and fitness regimen for the players. Couple those with global sponsorship opportunities--the likes of Adidas and Nike seek the best endorsers wherever they happen to be in the world instead of belonging to a particular (European) league--and the choice to stay at home makes more sense:

They are going home to a new kind of football organization. "The infrastructure is much better than it used to be, the training grounds, the medical staff, the support staff," says Deco, who left Brazil as a callow 19-year-old in 1997 to play first in Portugal (where he became a citizen, as have Brazilian players in other nations), then Spain and England before returning to lead Fluminense to the 2012 Brazilian Championship.

It helps that the clubs are now able to recruit professional administrators. Rio de Janeiro corporate lawyer Elena Landau, a former director of privatization at Brazil's national development bank, recalls the struggle to hire business managers at her favorite club, Botafogo, in 2003. "We were calling friends who had retired from corporate jobs and pleading with them to come and help run the club," she says. "Now, you can hire smart young people with sports-management degrees from university." 

However, the persistent question for players like Neymar is, are they truly world-class in being able to compete with the best talent European leagues have week in and week out? I guess Brazil expects that a home victory in the 2014 World Cup will be the best way to silence critics of players who decide to remain.

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Growing Export Markets by Immigration to Canada

Pro-migration voices like myself usually argue that the exchange of people is mutually beneficial for destination and source countries alike. Destination countries--usually wealthier Western nations experiencing declining birth rates--benefit from having newer workers joining the labour force whose activities help generate revenues to fund commitments made to previous generations. Meanwhile, source countries benefit from remittances sent and know-how gained by their migrants.

The Conference Board of Canada, however, has a novel addition to the benefits of migration: how about the destination countries growing their exports to the source countries of migrants in the process? HSBC Global Connections has a summary of the findings:

A recent paper, Immigrants as Innovators, published by the Conference Board of Canada, found a direct relationship between higher immigration and increased imports and exports from a particular country, a relationship that was independent of the wealth, geographic distance and language of the other country. A 1% increase in immigrants in Canada is associated with a 0.11 % increase in exports, which might not sound like much until you translate the figure into dollars.

Why does this happen? In the past, emphasis has been on the value of "learning English" as a source of migrants' eventual advantages. Consider, though, if the opposite holds true of them bringing their own unique languages, skills, and global networks to the benefit of Canada. A recent example is that of Filipinos who immigration rates to Canada lead all comers:

The report’s author Michelle Downie, senior research associate at the Conference Board, says immigrants have social and business networks, language skills and knowledge of their home culture that makes it easier for international relationships to form. “Businesses can put too much of a premium on Canadian experience—English-language skills and how people fit into Canadian culture—without considering the assets of the international experience immigrants are bringing,” says Downie.

The report offers the example of Filipinos, whose immigration rates to Canada rose faster than any other nationality in the last decade. “Between 1999 and 2008, the value of goods exported from Canada to the Philippines increased from $360 million in 1999 (in constant 2008 dollars) to nearly $560 million in 2008,” states the report. “The increase in the value of exports to the Philippines coincides with increases in permanent residents from that country.” 

Good stuff; the entire paper is downloadable from the Conference Board of Canada after registering online. To paraphrase an American leader from when the US was still more envied than pitied, migrants ask not what their destination country can do for them, but what they can do for their destination country.

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Will Remittances Outstrip FDI to LDCs?

In an older post, I reiterated the argument that if rich countries were truly interested in promoting world development, then they would allow more persons from poor countries to work there. As we all know, however, significantly increased liberalization of migration is not likely because of the politics in rich countries. Labour protectionism, unvarnished racism, and misplaced fears of terror all work against making globalization live up to the name instead of the half-baked sort we have today which favours rich countries. That is, the free movement of capital, goods and services benefits those who have plenty of those--rich countries--more than it does those who have mostly labour--poor countries--to offer in the bargain.

Reading through the World Bank's most recent Migration and Remittances Brief, I was thus rather encouraged by migrant workers' international remittances slowly but surely gaining ground on FDI as the poor countries' largest source of capital inflows. What is more, projections are that they will keep that trajectory, while more volatile FDI which tends to vary with global economic conditions may again suffer a large dip alike during the global financial crisis:

Rich countries are understandably stingy with official development aid (ODA) nowadays since they really don't have cash to burn, especially with their assorted crises. Still, FDI is arguably better in the sense that its benefits are longer lasting. Then again, remittances are better yet insofar as they do not have the same sort of boom and bust cycles even during the teeth of financial crises. I suspect that this hypothesis may unfortunately be tested by another major crisis coming out of the developed world--that is, remittances will again outstrip FDI for the first time since the early Nineties.

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Spanish Exodus: Back to Latin America

[NOTE: This is another of my "Hard Times in Hispania" installations.] In a recent post, I described how many young, jobless Spaniards sought employment in Germany despite the language barriers. It may seem odd but it's true: many Spaniards and those who migrated there when times were better from Latin countries are now going to Latin America--especially since linguistic differences are obviously negligible compared to, say, Germany. The days of Spain's own housing boom and the concomitant requirement for housing construction labour are long over. Whereas the Big Thing not so long ago was to seek greener pastures in Spain, unemployment rates over 25% have done Spain in. Truly, it's a reversal of fortunes:

After joining the euro in 1999, Spain's economic boom made it the land of opportunity for millions of Latin American migrant workers. But since the decade-long boom turned to bust roughly four years ago, many of those immigrants have returned, joined by a growing number of disillusioned Spaniards who hope that Latin America, with its developing economies and low cost of living, has more to offer.

 Spaniards are traditionally reluctant to emigrate and they are among the least likely in Europe to go abroad for work. But with the unemployment rate at 25 percent, more Spaniards are ready to leave behind the comforts of home.

More and more, it's Spaniards themselves and not naturalized citizens who are going elsewhere:

Roughly 370,000 people emigrated from Spain in 2011, 10 times more than before the economy tanked in 2008. Although about 86 percent of them were naturalized immigrants born abroad, there is also a growing number of native Spaniards saying "ya basta" ("enough is enough"). Over 50,000 left last year, up 80 percent since before the crisis hit. More than 9,000 went to Latin America, up from about 3,600 in 2006, said Jesus Fernandez Huertas of Spanish think tank Fedea, citing data from the national statistics office.

I fear it will be a long, long time until they come back 

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NOT Going to America? Japanese Baseball Protectionism

Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball - Jacques Barzun [RIP]

Those with even a passing knowledge of baseball know that the Japanese are the best in the world at this sport. Despite extending my congratulations to the 2012 US champions the San Francisco Giants--many of my relatives Stateside live in the Bay Area and are big fans--it is certainly a misnomer to call a sporting event between two US clubs the "World Series." It's another example of American narrow-mindedness in thinking their country represents the world, but the reality is that in truly international competition--the World Baseball Classic--Japanese teams have won both times this event was held Stateside in 2006 and 2009. Just as the British who invented the sport are exceptionally lame at football (soccer to American readers) having won no World Cups in recent memory, so too are the Americans exceptionally lame at baseball since they did not even place in the aforementioned events in their own backyard. As the Yanks prolly would say about their non-world class squads, "You suck, boys." (Draw your own conclusions about evident American hegemonic decline and its performance in baseball.)

It was thus with no small amount of interest that I came across an article concerning American efforts to poach great Japanese talent amid rising homegrown opposition. Actually, the Japanese have already tried to prevent more of their young players from going to America by prohibiting those who do straight from high school from playing in Japanese leagues for three years after they return to Nippon (it's for two years for those representing corporate or university teams). The so-called "Tazawa rule" is now being rethought though after one of the nation's most promising prospects, Shohei Otani--an 18-year-old fireballer throwing 100 MPH fastballs--left:

Japanese baseball officials are considering stricter rules for amateur players who bypass the country’s professional leagues to play in Major League Baseball. Concern with the existing rules arose after high school pitcher Shohei Otani decided to pursue a career in the major leagues instead of playing in Japanese professional baseball.

In 2008, Junichi Tazawa left Japan’s corporate league, signing with the Boston Red Sox as the first top amateur to bypass the Japanese draft. Tazawa’s move led Japanese baseball to rule that if a player decides to play overseas after being drafted by a Japanese team, he cannot play for a Japanese pro club for up to three years after he returns to Japan.

Japan’s 12 pro teams are looking for tougher rules to keep talented young players in Japan. “If there is a better system for the teams and for the players we should consider it,” Hiroshima Carp general manager Kiyoaki Suzuki said.

Instead of North-South brain drain, what we have here is "arm drain"--OECD style. Given that US-Japanese trade history has historically been contentious--over film, cars, and what else have you--it is interesting how the roles are reversed in the realm of migration. Ever heard of the famously mercantilist Japanese wishing they had fewer exports? Still, there is really nothing the Japanese can do if the aforementioned players decide to play for the majority of their careers Stateside.

Already, the team which has rights to him--the Nippon Ham Fighters (please don't ask)--indicates that it would prefer if the rule were abolished so that they can still allow him to play should he return to Japan instead of making him sit out for three seasons:

The meeting [about expatriate players] sought to find a compromise solution for the aggrieved Fighters by discussing whether the Sapporo-based team could retain exclusive negotiating rights to Otani. The issue of lifting the ban on the 1.93m pitcher if he returns to Japan was the key topic of discussion. "Suppose Otani returns after five years," Fighters executive director Toshimasa Shimada told the Sankei Sports newspaper. "Is it right to keep him out of Japanese baseball until he's 26?"

 For all its frailties, it appears American baseball still has more than a smidgen of "market power."

UPDATE: And speaking of the World Series, don't get me started on how many players on both teams were actually imports from countries like Venezuela which have done rather better than the US in international competition.

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Get Lost Foreign Students: Today's United Kingdom

Having been one at various points in life, I generally believe foreign students are harmless. While they are certainly easy targets for xenophobia--recall how the United States tightened student visas in the wake of 9/11 before universities that had become reliant on full-tuition paying foreign students complained--demagoguery aimed at them is usually unwarranted. Aside from generating services related to their stays, however, there remains the general suspicion that their motives are base. The UK has been having this debate for years now as immigration numbers have been elevated for quite a while, buoyed as they have been by foreign students. Sometimes they are even treated like criminals. Yes, there are indeed substandard educational institutions and dubious programmes that blight the UK higher education scene alike elsewhere in the world, but even legitimate institutions are now feeling the pain of anti-foreigner sentiment:

Not so long ago business students flocked to Europe. Compared with their American counterparts, European schools were cheaper and their student bodies more diverse, both attractive features—and the salaries of European MBA graduates were often higher, too. Some of these attractions remain undimmed. But they are no longer enough to bring in the punters. Data from The Economist’s latest ranking of full-time MBA programmes (see article) suggest the appeal of an Old World business education has gone into a rapid decline.

The lack of opportunities for post-study work are also hurting enrollments alongside tightening of visa rules. Besides, are there even jobs to be found in the UK which has had three straight quarterly declines in GDP?

One obvious reason why students might stay away is the dire economy. MBAs can look like a good way to sit out a short downturn. In a longer one they lose their charm. With no job-producing European recovery in sight, going there for an MBA seems not so much cleverly counter-cyclical as stubbornly contrarian.

Europe’s slide also reflects a problem specific to its most important MBA market. The average class size of the British MBA programmes ranked by The Economist has decreased by 11% over the past year. Schools blame Britain’s newly toughened visa requirements for non-EU students. Graduates used to have an automatic right to stay and work for two years. Now, they must find a sponsoring company and land a job which pays at least £20,000 ($32,000) a year. The number of visas available to students wanting to start their own business is piddling.

Where to go then? Aside from tighter visa rules for foreign students, the UK and US share scant job prospects and declining wages besides. It's up to the more progressive lands of Australia and Canada to pick up the slack, then. While those nations also have their fair share of xenophobes, the general sentiment toward foreigners and the economic outlook is brighter in these lands:

The fact that European schools are struggling is particularly galling because America has also made it more difficult for foreign students to work in the country after graduation, providing what should be an extra opportunity for the Europeans. American MBA programmes are typically twice the length of those in Europe, making both the cost and the opportunity cost of studying there higher. The salaries earned by American MBA graduates have been stagnant for over a decade. All this should have spurred students from poorer countries to apply to European schools.

Instead, the countries doing well out of America’s closing doors and high costs are Canada and Australia. Australia recently ditched its own strict policy on student visas in favour of a more welcoming approach. And Canada has perhaps gone further than any country in wooing overseas students. As of 2008, all students who have completed a two-year master’s degree automatically have the right to stay in the country and work for three years. They do not need to have a job lined up and are not restricted to working in a field linked to their studies, as they would be in America.

As before, I think that the university system in the US and UK are the canaries in the coal mine for higher education in these countries. Locals graduates cannot find jobs--nor can foreign students it seems who you would think have more opportunities elsewhere. What then is the rationale for universities that prepare local and international students for non-existent jobs?

While you may not get the impression reading different blogs from others in academia (professorial rent seekers ey?), make no mistake that higher education is broken in these countries and needs much fixing to stay relevant. Alas, I believe that the gales of creative destruction will remake higher education as we know it--especially if it continues to be increasingly irrelevant to the fundamental task of improving employment prospects.

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FILTH No More: Expats 'Endangered' in Asia

"Bye-bye, laowai!" (foreign devil) I kept hearing last year while playing the ultra-violent video game Deus Ex: Human Revolution which partly occurs in the fictional Chinese megacity of Hengsha. Set in the not-so-distant future where China has overtaken the United States as the world's dominant economy, I guess it is prescient in more than one respect. For, instead of Chinese gangbangers trying to get rid of the American video game protagonist in DX:HR, we have a similar real-life situation going on in terms of MNCs being reluctant to bring Yanks and Brits to work in Asia.

I have previously discussed the FILTH phenomenon of British office slaves (usually bankers) decamping to Hong Kong: Failed In London, Try Hongkong. I even coined my own term for the selfsame folks thinking they can make it big in the PRC: Failed In London, CHina Bound (FILCH). However, the heyday of FILTH is ebbing, while that of FILCH may never even reach a golden age--or at least says a recent feature from Global Connections.

Forget expats. Western companies doing business in Asia are now looking to locals to fill the most important jobs in the region. Behind the switch, experts say, are several factors, including a leveled playing field in which Western companies must approach newly empowered Asian companies and consumers as equals and clients—not just manufacturing partners.

Companies now want executives who can secure deals with local businesses and governments without the aid of a translator, and who understand that sitting through a three-hour dinner banquet is often a key part of the negotiating process in Asia, experts say. In fact, three out of four senior executives hired in Asia by multinationals were Asian natives already living in the region, according to a Spencer Stuart analysis of 1,500 placements made from 2005 to 2010. Just 6% were noncitizens from outside of Asia. 

The new pecking order is headed by Asians with a Western education who are fluent in the local language--like me! They are increasingly the elite of Asian business since they are familiar not only with the management styles of Western MNCs but also the vagaries of doing business in Asian countries where connections matter more and unspoken codes of conduct predominate:

To help companies fill Asia-based executive roles, at least two search firms—Spencer Stuart and Korn/Ferry International—say they have begun classifying executives in four broad categories: Asia natives steeped in local culture but educated in the U.S. or Europe; the foreigner who has lived or worked in Asia for a long time; a person of Asian descent who was born or raised in a Western country but has had little exposure to Asia; and the local Asian executive who has no Western experience. For companies seeking local expertise, both firms said the first category is by far the most sought-after. But Mr. Johnston said those candidates are difficult to find and retain, and they can command salaries of $750,000 to $1 million—on par with, and sometimes more than, their expat counterparts.

Meanwhile, the expat with no Asia experience does not impress even with a CV full of accomplishments from other parts of the world. Gone are the days when the white sahib would come and lord it over us coloureds:

Foreigners with no Asia experience, on the other hand, need not apply, recruiters said. Spencer Stuart's Mr. Johnston said he occasionally receives inquiries from Western middle managers, proclaiming that they are finally ready to make a career move to the region. He advises them that "there is nothing about their experience that is interesting or relevant to Asia." In hubs like Singapore and Hong Kong, expats receive as much as $200,000 a year in subsidies for housing, transportation and private schooling, Mr. Johnston said. Payments to offset taxes for these benefits add up to another $100,000. Altogether, a bad match can cost a company as much as $1 million, after figuring in relocation costs, he said.

Monster Worldwide Inc. Chief Executive Sal Iannuzzi said the company has been hiring locally for several years, in part because he found deploying expatriates cost too much. "It takes them six months to figure out how to take a ferry, they're there for 12 months, and then they spend the next six months figuring out how to get home," he said. Like some other companies, Monster now tracks its own workers to ensure a pipeline of talent. 

As the darned video game said, bye-bye, laowai!

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No Jobs? Come to Germany, Young PIGS Citizens

From station to station
Back to Dusseldorf City
Meet Iggy Pop and David Bowie
Trans-Europe Express 

Whew! We haven't had a video feature in a while, so here's a classic, Kraftwerk's Trans-Europe Express. Economic migration is often driven by differentials in economic opportunities, whether they be more job openings or higher pay. Whereas in the past the Poland to UK route used to be popular in Europe along with other Eastern to Western European migration corridors, times have changed. Poland for instance is faring rather better than the UK economically and so on.

The WSJ sifts through recent OECD data to find, unsurprisingly, that emigration is increasing from the likes of Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain. As a migration advocate, I see the positive side in being able to defray (hopefully temporary rather than structural) unemployment within the Eurozone through migration within it--just as the United States does with no real limits to movement across state boundaries. Not only does it help lessen unemployment benefits the troubled states pay out, but it also [shhh] helps rid them of angry young persons in the meantime. As Europe's troubles continue, these countries are returning to their former status as migrant-sending rather than migrant-receiving ones:

The OECD report shows how the contrast in economic fortunes between countries undergoing harsh austerity measures and those still showing robust growth may be starting to turn emigration trends on their head. Following the end of World War II, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy all experienced "significant emigration," but in the years running up to the financial crisis they had become countries of immigration "hosting significant numbers of labor migrants," the OECD said. The economic and fiscal crisis appears to have turned them back into countries of emigration, although the OECD cautioned that reliable data aren't readily available for some.

Reuters, however, illustrates certain barriers to the free flow of migrants in Europe. Unlike say the United States where they all speak English (and share a national fondness for debts 'n' fats, but let me not get into that right now), linguistic and cultural differences are far more pronounced in Europe despite also having free movement of labour--at least in theory. That said, the Germans are like everyone else in trying to pick off other nations' best and brightest if they are to welcome migrants--no surprises there. Consider the plight of Spanish health care workers as an illustration:

After more than a decade working as doctors, Spaniards Elena Casillas and Esther Perea are back in the classroom, and it's not easy. Some of their classmates need dictionaries to compose basic sentences. Others need help with word order. For everyone, the biggest challenge is pronunciation. "When I first heard German, I thought, ‘My God, it's horrible,'" says 40-year old Casillas, one of a dozen medics recruited by a private German hospital group which is giving the pair free classes in Madrid with the promise of work at a German hospital if they come up to scratch.

Casillas' class is part of a German campaign to attract people who have skills in medicine and engineering. Germany can use up to 200,000 immigrant workers per year to maintain its economic potential, according to the Bundesbank, while Spain currently has the highest unemployment in Europe, more than 24 percent or around 5.6 million people.

Given that free movement of labor is one of the foundation stones of the European Union, you might think job-seekers from Spain would be filling Germany's gaps. A few are making the shift: in 2011, Spanish arrivals jumped 52 percent according to German data. But the overall numbers are still tiny. Between 16,000 and 21,000 came to Germany from Spain last year, compared with more than 100,000 immigrants from Poland. "Looking at the economic situation one might have expected a bit more outflows," said Thomas Liebig, an expert in international migration at the OECD.

Europe's relative lack of labor mobility can be pinned on cultural obstacles, as well as increasingly choosy employers and stiff competition from established migrants. For Spaniards, in particular, Europe is not working, and this highlights a structural trend just at the time the region needs to make the most of its single market for workers. "Where governments are able to manage the inflow they are becoming more selective," says John Salt, a professor at University College London who specializes in international European migration. "What they want are workers with high-level skills who can initiate new ideas or developments, or fill certain skill gaps."

It's the same old story heard around the world, although it plays out in interesting ways in Europe given the aforementioned cultural differences and the limited number of promising destinations (sad to say). Make no mistake: intra-EU migration is a buyer's market in this day and age. And do learn German fer cryin' out loud if you plan to take the "Trans-Europe Express" bound for Düsseldorf.

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Hopeless, Jobless America? Go East, Young Yank

There are two interesting features in TIME on dealing with the generally jobless state of modern America. The first is a Job-like (biblical) lament about how unpaid internships are common Stateside when they should not be. As you'd expect, the article is accompanied by sob stories about young Americans enduring a string of unpaid internships. Fed up, a generation that is growing up during the Occupy movement is supposedly petitioning the US Department of Labor to stop these abusive practices. Among other things, laws forbidding unpaid internships are being proposed. However, you have to wonder whether excessively strict regulation of what many companies have regarded as drudge work may discourage the practice altogether. The unfortunate end result may be discontinuing a traditional route into paid employment that, unsavory as it may be at times, is par for the course in a country on a clear downward trend in the global league tables.

On a more optimistic note, I am keener on another piece describing what I've recommended before: Why stick around in the jobless West when you can move to where the action is in the much faster-growing Pacific Rim? While Americans are unfortunate to be Americans in these sweepstakes since they are taxed by the IRS worldwide, being employed in an "exotic" location should be a better prospect than being stuck unemployed. Who sends and receives migrants? The tables are turning for economic reasons:

Raised in the relative affluence of the 1990s, the so-called millennial generation graduated in one of the worst recessions since World War II. As these young people from some of the world’s richest countries struggle to find jobs, Asian nations are filling some of the gap. “The shifting balance of global growth is making emerging economies more attractive,” explains Madeleine Sumption, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. “It is turning them into receiving countries, when traditionally they’ve been sending countries.”

Fueling the eastward migration is a generation-defining shortage of jobs. The 2008–09 financial crisis, coupled with the euro debt crisis, has hit people in Europe and North America hard. Recent college graduates and young people entering the workforce for the first time are particularly at risk. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), there are 75 million people between the ages of 15 and 24 struggling to find work, particularly in developed economies and Europe. The European Union youth unemployment rates span from 22% in the U.K. to more than half of 15-to-24-year-olds in Spain and Greece. Last year, more than half of Americans under 25 who hold a bachelor’s degree were jobless or underemployed — the highest in more than a decade, according to an analysis of U.S. data by the Associated Press. And while governments struggle to curb the jobs crisis amid budget deficits and austerity measures, East Asia is booming.

Though some East Asian nations still struggle with youth unemployment, the region is doing relatively well. According to the ILO, East Asia’s jobless-youth rate hovered at about 8.3% in 2010 and is projected to hold steady over the next few years. This has led to an influx of young people [from the West]. In Hong Kong...the government reported an average increase of 26% in issuing temporary work visas to residents of the U.S., U.K., Germany, Spain, Italy and France from 2007 to ’11. 

Harping on a theme I've highlighted before, it is truly unconscionable that 53.6% of college graduates in the US are unemployed or underemployed (flipping burgers at Mickey D's, selling Blu-Ray players at Best Buy, etc.) I don't know about you, but I would feel so ashamed about blithely carrying on offering "college is the key to prosperity" snake oil while graduates take on mountains of debt with little hope of finding remunerative employment. Despite certain academic rent-seekers denying that the US university system is in dire need of repair to address employability issues--why attend increasingly costly college to earn increasingly less (if you can find work at all)--more practical sorts who aren't stuck in ivory towers should know better.

Meanwhile, as we wait for the global tertiary system of education to become more alike the German apprenticeship system instead of the Anglo-Saxon uni-jobless system, there are stopgap measures. Flee America, the land of no opportunity, and head east young Yank, head east.

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Jackson-Vanik, Cold War US-Russia Trade Irritant

I recently visited Singapore and was given a quaint reminder of days gone by when, while checking into my hotel, I noticed a separate registration section needed to be filled by unmarried guests sharing the same room. Quibble if you will with the moralistic tone of this practice, but it's definitely not in tune with the times. In a similar vein, I came across yet another practice that seems to have been lifted from antiquity concerning the application of the Jackson-Vanik amendment against Russia which dates from the heyday of one Leonid Brezhnev.

In 1974, Senator Henry Jackson (D-WA) and Congressman Charles Vanik (D-OH) introduced the eponymous amendment which forbids the US from granting most-favoured nation (MFN) status or permanent normalized trade relations (PNTR) in American trade legalese to nations that restricted emigration of their citizens. The Soviet Union had effectively put into place severe limits on emigration to Western nations--especially its most skilled including Jewish citizens. Call it the totalitarian, zero tolerance approach to brain drain. In turn, I assume that the US found this practice to be a gross violation of human rights based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights wherein Article 13 (2) states "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."

But that was a long time ago in a political context far, far away. While Jackson-Vanik has become an all-purpose American cudgel against Russia, the honest truth is that the Sov...I mean, Russians have long since relented on such limits to emigration. Nearly all mainstream media commentators have missed this important point that they are now "in compliance" with Jackson-Vanik. Inter alia, over a million Jews have emigrated from the USS...I mean, Russia to Israel. Nowadays, Israelis are instead complaining of integration issues arising from too much emigration from Russia:

Twenty years after Russia opened its doors to mass emigration, the number of immigrants choosing to move to Israel has stagnated. Since 1989, over one million Russians have immigrated to Israel. In the past few years, Israel has seen an average of between five and six thousand Russian immigrants per year.

Professor Eliezer Leshem, a former Hebrew University professor and current Professor Emeritus at Ariel University Center of Samaria, believes that the current cessation of immigration may have something to do with discrimination many Russians felt while being absorbed into Israeli society.

Russians have long been able to settle wherever they want--including the United States as I myself remember from my MBA days when many American classmates had Russian wives. Yet the US has found it politically expedient to continue applying Jackson-Vanik against Russia. A few months ago I relayed the much-anticipated news that Russia would at last join the WTO. The problem here with regard to Jackson-Vanik is that the WTO requires that its members extend MFN treatment to one another. Hence, the Obama administration's recognition of this basic understanding is behind its argument to lift Jackson-Vanik against Russia.

Speaking of Cold War remnants, though, it is unsurprising that it's the neoconservative wing of American politics that is most fervently opposed to removing Jackson-Vanik (which is doubly odd in that Democrats authored this legislation long ago.) For instance, that bastion of right-leaning thought the WSJ op-ed pages says a repeal of the amendment would come "From Obama With Love" by effectively approving of Vladimir Putin's suspect election victory (among other nefarious practices).

To cut a long story short, the US has only two real options here regarding Russia's membership as a Congressional Report Service report anticipated in 2005. First, the US can do what it has done for several other nations it has applied Jackson-Vanik against by granting MFN status upon WTO accession. Which is what several Democratic lawmakers have been pushing for quite some time now. Second, the US can relive the Cold War by refusing to grant PNTR status to Russia, which violates its WTO MFN commitments. The only possible workaround is for the US (and by implication Russia) to pretend the WTO doesn't exist:

[I]nvoke the "non-application principle" of the WTO. For newly acceding countries, a member of the WTO can opt out of WTO commitments with respect to the newly acceding country if it invokes the “non-application” principle [Article XIII of the Marrakesh Agreement to be precise]. If the U.S. were to invoke the non-application principle against Russia, it means that the U.S. would refuse to honor its WTO obligations to Russia. But non-application is reciprocal. So the U.S. would not have any assurance that its exporters or investors would be treated in Russia according to Russia's WTO commitments.

It would certainly have been a rather pointless process to extract all sorts of commitments from Russia to accede to the WTO only for its most influential member to ignore the fact that Russia is indeed a WTO member. But, that's world politics for you. Note however that business lobbies think it would be a daft idea not to repeal Jackson-Vanik after everything that's transpired:

The business community has also “come out in full force,” going on the Hill to make it clear Russia is a priority, said the Baucus aide. A business coalition–whose members include major groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers as well as multinationals such as Boeing Co. and General Electric Co., announced earlier this month that restoring trade relations with Russia will be the top trade priority this year.

If this is indeed what will occur, note that the only current WTO member with the dubious distinction of not being granted MFN status by the US is Moldova:

In practice, the U.S. has dropped Jackson-Vanik on all countries that have acceded to the WTO with one exception. In the cases of Albania, Bulgaria Cambodia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Jackson-Vanik was repealed prior to accession. In the cases of Mongolia, Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan it was repealed after accession, so the "non-application" principle was invoked, but eventually removed within a year or two. (In the case of Georgia, non-application was never invoked since Jackson-Vanik was removed soon enough after accession.) Only in the case of Moldova does Jackson-Vanik still apply to a country that acceded to the WTO.

Moldovans too have been freely emigrating for years, so their holdup must be for other reasons.

We'll see what happens as the US congress begins deliberations over the implications of Russian WTO membership later this week. Even Putin's opponents can agree that trade with Russia should not be curtailed via Jackson-Vanik (but rather economic ties with specific human rights offenders through separate legislation). Me? I'll be cueing up Springsteen's "Glory Days" as a backhanded salute to those poor souls who simply cannot accept that the world has moved on--in the wink of a young girl's eye.

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Your Top Migration Stories of 2011

The Migration Information Source lists its top migration stories for 2011. You have the usual xenophobia. But, the main themes are evenly split between human security issues involving unstable Middle East states and economic migrants fleeing economic, not combat, warzones in traditional migrant-receiving nations that have seen better times in search for greener pastures in faster-growing developing countries--some of which they left in the first place. Things change, my dear:

1.	Arab Spring and Fear of Migrant Surge Expose Rift in EU Immigration Policy Circles - The Arab Spring exposed critical weaknesses and exacerbated long-held disagreements within the European Union related to asylum, immigration, and external border control policy matters that spilled over into the operation of the Schengen area.
2.	Economic Malaise Makes Immigrants a Target for Restrictive Legislation, Public Backlash - With unemployment rates remaining persistently high in the wake of the global economic crisis, ongoing turbulence in financial markets, and new austerity in public spending, anxious publics and governments trained their attention on immigration and immigrants during 2011.
3.	Immigration in the United States and Parts of Europe Gives Way to Increased Emigration - Immigration flows this year continued to respond sharply to the economic climate in major immigrant-receiving nations, as many people struggled to gain a labor market foothold in the aftermath of the global economic meltdown.
4.	Highly Skilled Migrants Seek New Destinations as Global Growth Shifts to Emerging Economies - Developing nations that were once primarily migrant-sending states are now experiencing a boom that is beginning to increase their attractiveness for highly educated and highly skilled migrants and beckoning their diaspora members home.
5.	Substantial Investments to Court Diaspora Entrepreneurs for Development Gains - With the goal of building and sustaining economic growth in mind, some countries have intensified their efforts to court investments from their nationals and co-ethnics abroad, recognizing that diaspora entrepreneurs are uniquely positioned to spot opportunities in their countries of origin and capitalize on them.
6.	Heading into the 2012 Elections, Republican Presidential Candidates Walk the Immigration Policy Tightrope - The debate season is well underway for the Republican presidential primary races in the United States, and immigration has once again emerged as a highly contentious policy issue.
7.	Immigrant Detention under Scrutiny in Australia, United Kingdom, and United States - Public backlash against the detention systems of Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States mounted in 2011with allegations of unacceptable living conditions, abuse, prolonged detention, and government waste.
8.	The Arab Spring and Other Crises in Africa Displace More Than 1 Million People - The succession of displacement and refugee crises arising from the Arab Spring and in Côte d'Ivoire, Somalia, and Sudan highlighted the need for governments and the international community to achieve and maintain readiness to manage population movements triggered by sociopolitical unrest and environmental factors.
9.	A Decade after 9/11, Enforcement Focus Prevails in the United States; Broader Immigration Reforms Remain Stalled - As the United States paused in September to mark the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the enforcement paradigm that took hold immediately after the terrorist attacks showed no signs of waning.
10.	Caught between Two Migration Realities, Mexico Passes New Immigration Legislation - In April 2011, the Mexican Congress unanimously approved an ambitious new migration law that sets out to address longstanding problems related to the immigration and transmigration of Central Americans and the emigration and return migration of Mexicans.

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Filipino Migrant Workers & Middle East Crossfire

What is the responsibility of a migrant-sending nation to its people overseas during times of trouble o'er yonder? I suppose it depends on the level of encouragement that the nation in question provides to finding work abroad. In the case of the Philippines with its substantial state infrastructure for helping its citizens find work overseas, perhaps a larger burden of ensuring safety when push comes to shove is placed on the government. insofar as the government is seen as a promoter of large-scale migration, its obligations are more extensive. Hence the constantly depressing coverage of seafarers picked off by pirates in the Gulf of Aden.

Additionally, something striking has been how overseas Filipino workers manage to find themselves caught in virtually every shakeout in the Middle East in recent years. You name it: Lebanon in 2006; Egypt and Libya in 2011...and this year ain't over yet. Compared to those conflagrations, the situation in Syria has been protracted:

The Philippines on Thursday offered to fly its 5,000 citizens in Syria home for free as it again urged them to leave immediately to escape escalating violence, the foreign department said. Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said the government would help all Filipinos arrange passage out of the Middle East country, which has been torn by deadly protests against President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

"In view of the escalating violence in Syria, the Department of Foreign Affairs will be raising alert level 4 for the entire country of Syria effective today," he said in a statement. That alert status meant all Filipinos would be repatriated at Philippine government expense, the ministry said.

Yet, alike in those other countries, the notable thing is how these workers are ambivalent about evacuating the strife-hit Syria even when offered a ticket home by the Philippine government. If the pay is relatively good and your workplace is not in the direct line of fire, some may think "Why go?" Once you head home, there is no guarantee that you will be able to find your way back.

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Emiratization & the Middle East Migration Debate

Migration has obviously been a hot topic as of late in many Middle East energy exporters that have large migrant worker populations. While the stereotypical migrant performs '3-D' dirty, dangerous, or difficult work, the reality is more complex. Expatriates cannot readily be lumped into one category, performing work requiring varying levels of skill and come from not just Asia but also Europe and further afield.

However, a particularly urgent concern has been a tendency to look over domestic labour in favour of foreign labour. Out of habit, the assumption is that the locals would rather sit back and relax while others did what needed to be done. If you read more recent Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) literature, though, there has been a move to providing more indigenous work opportunities. Given high birth rates in many GCC countries, providing livelihoods--admittedly not high on the priority list in the past--has moved up. With increasingly militant youth asking for grater political freedoms in the absence of work opportunities, programmes to train and employ Middle Easterners are all the rage. At the end of the day, keeping the leadership status quo intact is a priority.

The debate is interesting in that, in the UAE for example, there is no real question about migrant workers still coming to the desert in appreciable numbers for the near future. Emiratis will remain a minority in their own land for a long time. Rather, the challenge to the Emiratis is one of providing gainful local employment opportunities alongside more traditional work patterns. Khalid Al Ameri writes that both Emiratization programmes are mutually constitutive with current trends in expatriate employment:

Emiratisation has always been a hot topic for Emiratis and expatriates both, sometimes for different reasons. In the recent FNC [Federal National Council] campaign, it was clear that public opinion was very concerned with topics related to the population imbalance, in which Emiratis make up less than 20 per cent of the populace, and how Emiratisation can play a role in realigning the demographics. The issue has a heightened sense of urgency, and rightfully so.

The relatively slow progress of Emiratisation efforts, taken with the 13 per cent unemployment rate of nationals at the beginning of 2011, is a serious concern for national development. Any country's stability depends on its citizen labour force, just from a perspective of continuity. When the financial crisis hit in 2008-9, how many people were afraid that it would be Emiratis who left the country to seek jobs abroad?

There are several initiatives that are meant to boost Emiratis' participation in the public and private sectors: the mandate from Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, to the Executive Council to create 6,000 jobs in government departments, for instance; and the Khalifa Fund for Emiratisation Empowerment, which set aside Dh440 million to train Emiratis and to subsidise salaries. The goal now for business executives on the ground is to implement these programmes.

The answer may just be a hybrid in which foreign hired hands help in devising local employment opportunities:

That raises a question: who are we depending on to implement effective and sustainable Emiratisation policies? This is not just a matter of filling quotas, but of bringing Emiratis into the workplace, training them to the highest standards and providing an environment where they can grow and flourish.

The answer, I hope, is pretty obvious. With the lack of Emiratis in the private sector, we depend on expatriates to help implement the various Emiratisation strategies on the ground. The numbers speak for themselves: Emiratis make up about 5 per cent of the private sector. In some critical fields, such as health care, only 6 per cent of the workforce (and 1 per cent of physicians) is Emirati.

The training of young Emirati professionals by expatriate managers and staff is an interesting - and controversial - situation. One common argument that I have heard is that there is a lack of knowledge transfer from experienced expatriates to Emiratis. That may be the case, but it raises another interesting point. I have never seen qualified expatriates lose their jobs because they have trained young Emiratis to fill their jobs. If anything, experienced trainers are kept as an asset to develop other young nationals.

There is another issue that pertains to how expatriate professionals are treated by their own organisations. We have to remember that expatriate workers have their own career development goals, which can have a positive knock-on effect for their Emirati colleagues...How sustainable is a model where expatriates help to develop Emirati professional talent without development for their own careers? Some might argue that expatriates should stay in their own countries if they want to benefit from career-development programmes. But that is shortsighted. Expatriates' career ambitions and personal development targets strengthen their role in complementing the Emirati workforce...

With national leaders setting mandates for the Emirati workforce, expatriates have to be part of the solution. It starts with organisations making them feel that way. That could kick-start an effective Emiratisation movement.

It's interesting to see how ostensibly 'people-less' parts of the world handle such pressures.

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