Labor Mobility #26
Can Ukraine Compete With Europe for its Own Citizens?
Kateryna Semchuk | Open Democracy | June 24, 2020
As the continent cautiously emerges from isolation, countries across Europe desperately want to restart their economies - as usual, with migrant labor from the continent’s eastern half, particularly Ukraine. But after migrants returned home during the COVID-19 pandemic, Kyiv is reluctant to let them depart again.
Labor Mobility Within the EU Has Little More To Offer.
Wido Geis-Thöne | German Economic Institute | June 24, 2020
From a demographic point of view, there is still a great need for immigrants, as they will be needed to replace the baby boomers in the labor market. Mobility within the EU has little more to offer. For this reason, immigration policy in the coming years will need to focus on third countries with still-growing populations.
As Lebanon’s Financial Crisis Worsens, Migrant Workers Are on the Streets.
Rebecca Collard | The World | June 26, 2020
For the past two years, Masaret Shefara, who is from Ethiopia, has been working in the home of a family in Beirut. She made just $150 per month before the crisis. A few months ago, the family said they could no longer pay her and dropped her off at the embassy with no money and no way home.
A Brief, Cautionary, History of Japan-US Immigration.
Kaoru Ueda | The Diplomat | June 26, 2020
The history of Japanese migration to the United States demonstrates the complexity of migration issues. Often crafted with a lack of understanding of broader, more fundamental global issues and without a willingness and patience to tackle them, immigration policies can become volatile and create unnecessary confusion without ever yielding the desired outcome of creating job opportunities.
A ‘Not Welcome’ Sign Won’t Help: Companies React With Anger to Visa Restrictions in the United States.
Michael D. Shear and Miriam Jordan | The New York Times | June 22, 2020
Immigrants are behind Silicon Valley’s largest tech companies, and twenty-eight percent of doctors in the United States are immigrants. The directive to suspend H1-B immigration is fiercely opposed by business leaders, who say it will block their ability to recruit critically needed workers from countries overseas.
An inconvenient truth: the volume of money Ukrainian workers sent home last year was six times greater than foreign direct investment.
Instead of regulating this labor flow, the Ukrainian government must embrace labor mobility or risk a further decline in remittances, which are vital to the economy — 10% of Ukraine’s GDP.
