Labor Mobility #29
Migrants deserve better protection.
Felix Braunsdorf and Stefan Rother | Friedrich Ebert Foundation | July 14, 2020
If there is one thing the pandemic has shown, it is how dependent individual sectors of the economy are on work performed by migrants. For many, the pandemic meant numerous restrictions and, in some cases, a threat to their livelihoods. Working remotely is simply not an option for the legions of international workers employed in construction, agriculture, healthcare, and logistics in Europe. The EU’s credibility as an advocate of human rights and proponent of global solidarity is at stake.
The number of temporary foreign workers in Canada continues to climb.
Rachel Emmanuel | iPolitics | June 4, 2020
Close to 470,000 foreign nationals have a Canadian work permit that became effective in 2019, up from 390,000 in 2018 and 340,000 in 2017. Despite the increase, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Mary Robinson says jobs are still going unfilled, which is causing the Canadian economy to lose out on billions of dollars.
The direct hire ban imposed by the Philippine government is hurting Filipinos.
Lavaniya Rajah and Lou Janssen Dangzalan | Rappler | July 17, 2020
In the past, Canadian companies hiring foreign nationals from the Philippines could do so directly. But in 2018, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) banned granting overseas employment certificates (OECs) to any worker directly recruited by an employer. The Philippines should not apply a one-size-fits-all policy to the countries of deployment.
The number of migrant workers employed in Canadian agriculture increased by 52 percent from 2015 to 2019.
Robert Arnason | Western Producer | July 14, 2020
“The number of TFWs working in agricultural production, processing, or transportation rose by 52 percent between 2015 and 2019 alone,” says a report from the Simpson Centre For Agricultural and Food Innovation and Public Innovation at the University of Calgary. Several thousand of the foreign workers who came to Canada in 2019 didn’t make it back this year because of COVID-19. Part of the problem was uncertainty regarding Canada’s approach to temporary foreign workers who work on farms.
Five critical problems in Ukraine’s Labor Market.
Kyiv Post | July 15, 2020
Last year, an average of 2.5 million Ukrainian citizens were abroad at a given point in time, according to NBU estimates. Not only does labor migration affect the quantity and quality of labor resources and labor productivity in Ukraine, but also it makes the Ukrainian economy heavily dependent on remittances. Ukraine ranks 12th globally in terms of total incoming remittances and is in the top 15 countries by the remittances to GDP ratio.
