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I. Introduction
1. Historically, cross-border and intercontinental movements of labour – precursors to modern-day labour integration – took place under colonial and slave trade conditions and by way of migration as people sought better lives and economic opportunities. By the 18th century, about eight million people from other continents including Asia, had journeyed to the New World. Seven million people were slaves from Africa recruited primarily by means of coercion and contracts. Others were political and economic migrants from and within Europe, who in the last 200 years helped create the world's richest economies. People migrated from poorer, less developed countries to richer, more developed countries and colonial powers and their territories. Therefore, migration is not a new or transitory phenomenon; people have been migrating since the onset of civilization. By and large the political, social, religious and economic reasons for migration have remained the same – especially the quest for better living conditions. In 2000, for example, only 10 per cent of migrants were refugees and 2 asylum seekers; the rest were economic migrants.
2. Today, in the current, more mature postcolonial phase and second wave of trade-and investment-driven globalization and capitalism, labour movement and integration is taking place in response to a number of push and pull economic factors and market forces. The scale and extent of this is unprecedented, although it is nowhere near the scope and extent of crossborder trade, and movement of goods, capital, entrepreneurship, information and technologies; nor is it anywhere near achieving its potential. There are signs that labour integration and mobility are beginning to have a positive impact on trade and investment-driven globalization. Therefore, these factors are increasingly taken into account when devising national and international development strategies that include efforts to achieve internationally agreed development goals such as the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, in particular poverty reduction, gender equity, decent work and global partnerships for development.
3. Global labour integration and the ability of developing country labour to take part in global production and services provision are key factors at the interface of trade, development, migration and globalization. They are at the heart of the hopes and fears about globalization. What are the cost and benefits of globalization for developing countries and member States of the Organization for Economic Cooperation countries? Because of the potential of labour integration to help developing countries reap the fruits of the global economy via integration, many of these countries seem to regard it as a panacea for development. However, developed countries are for the first time re-evaluating globalization in the light of the competition posed by developing country labour integration and the economic, social and political pressures it generates.
4. In short, this paper attempts to answer the question as to how labour mobility and labour integration, in particular from developing to developed countries, can be managed more effectively and coherently so as to contribute to the achievement of internationally agreed development goals. It also seeks to understand how multilateral, regional and bilateral agreements and governance regimes should evolve in order to work towards global development solidarity. This paper does not attempt to look at the larger issue of permanent migration; it focuses instead on a smaller subset of economic migration and labour integration, namely the temporary movement of labour from the perspective of developed and developing countries. To achieve this, the paper first describes the problem of labour mobility, emphasizing push-pull factors and barriers to labour mobility. Second it defines labour mobility, outlining seven inconsistencies in the labour mobility conundrum. Third, it discusses the current state of play in the global labour market.
5. Fourth, it underscores the resulting benefits and costs for both sending and receiving countries. Looking at it from the sending country lens, the paper highlights the socio-economic benefits and costs associated with such movements, including how to maximize these benefits and minimize the costs. The fifth and last part of this paper focuses on labour mobility from a trade perspective. It advocates the use of frameworks for liberalizing and facilitating the temporary movement of persons. This section argues that apart from the economic and development benefits in the interest of global coherence and solidarity, progress in allowing temporary movement of labour must be made. Two tools enabling such liberalization and facilitation are the World Trade Organization's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and bilateral labour agreements which can stand alone or be part of broader regional and bilateral agreements. The conclusion of the paper makes several policy recommendations aimed at ensuring the sustained positive effects of migration on development at the national and
international levels. Particular attention is paid to the aspects of creating and enhancing the enabling environment nationally and internationally and ensuring coherence in development policy-making. These measures could help achieve globally acceptable, coherent and mutually beneficial solutions.
A. Push-pull factors
6. Never before have there been such opportunities for labour integration and mobility in the context of trade- and investment-led globalization. The push-pull factors that influence labour mobility are probably unprecedented. It is difficult to clearly distinguish between a push factor and a pull factor. Generally speaking, however, the following push and/or pull factors can act as catalysts for labour mobility:
Push factors
7. The quest for better livelihoods and standards of living has led to the movement of labour not just between developing and developed countries, but among and within developing countries. The push factors for this kind of circulation can be social, environmental or economic. While globalization has brought economic benefits to many, it has also sharpened the divide between the rich and the poor. The attendant social disadvantages and discriminations coupled with more traditional social disadvantages, such as gender and class, provide sufficient reason to encourage people to move. Skilled workers are attracted by opportunities to better use, deploy or enhance their skills, compared with what may be possible in their home countries where institutional infrastructures and entrepreneurship may be underdeveloped.
8. Another emerging push factor whose exact impact is still being estimated is the impact of environmental degradation and of naturalresources- related conflict on labour mobility. This is especially relevant in the current context of climate change. The impacts of climate change, and the wage differential among and within countries coupled with population growth in developing countries, are likely to increase the pressure on the movement of people not just within countries but between countries as well. The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change (October 2006) points out that climate change is likely to cause hundreds of millions of people to suffer hunger, water shortages and coastal flooding, leading to possible mass migration and conflict in parts of the developing world. Although the exact extent of this movement is difficult to estimate, it could range from millions of people at risk of malnutrition and lack of clean water to those currently living in flood plains. According to the same report, nearly 200 million people today live in coastal flood zones that are at risk; in South Asia alone, the number exceeds 60 million people. According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, climate change disasters cause more population displacement than war and persecution. Estimates of climate refugees currently range from 25 to 50 million. In most cases, the populations most likely to be affected are the poor.
9. Economic considerations have been shown to be a major decision-making factor in cross-border movement. Poverty, high unemployment rates and under employment in developing countries and least developed countries, particularly among the youth, are contributory factors. The lack of job opportunities at home, promises of better wages abroad and the prospects of being able to help improve the quality of life of migrants and their families back home serve as motivations for overseas work. A prime motivating factor for migration in some countries is the depletion of domestic natural resources through unsustainable exploitation furthered by, for example, bilateral agreements between host countries and countries seeking access to fish resources. In poor regions, particularly in North-West Africa where there is a great reliance on fish, not only as a source of protein but as an important source of livelihood, the consequences are particularly stark. This loss of livelihood has been cited as a contributory factor to migration to the European Union.
10. Socio-cultural factors also play a role, with nationals from some countries more prone to move than others. This willingness perhaps arises for reasons such as exposure to Western culture and practices, the attraction of more eclectic cultures, that is, cultures that are diverse, less traditional and more open, and tradition –some countries have a long history of migration allowing for the presence of relations or friends abroad who serve as inspiration or network to venture further afield. Linguistic and cultural affinities are also important motivating factors.
11. The expanding trade and investment dynamic has also created interesting spinoff impacts on labour mobility. Interestingly, many developing countries see two kinds of labour movement: internal and external. External labour movement involves movement from the home country to another country, generally towards a more attractive destination, whereas internal labour movement involves the mass movement of migrants from rural areas to urban centres in search of higher wages. This poses urban and infrastructural development challenges of substantial magnitude in turn leading to outward migration from urban centres as in Bangladesh, Cambodia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Even the larger developing countries such as China, Brazil and India, which are now experiencing high economic growth rates, have to meet formidable development challenges of integrating and supporting their own low-income populaces. Another interesting aspect of labour movement linked to expanding trade and investment in the emerging economies arises in the context of natural resources. The search and competition for natural resources, raw materials and trade and investment opportunities in third countries involves labour mobility. Good examples of this are the movement of workers from China to Africa, as a result of Chinese companies' involvement in infrastructure projects in African countries or Indian computer technicians providing services in third countries. A third more skills-based aspect of the trade and investment expansion dynamic is the growth of production and distribution networks set up by multinational corporations. This has resulted in the movement of particularly skills-based labour across the globe in response to other push-pull factors.
Pull factors
12. Demographic and labour factors. There are increasing complementarities between countries that belong to the Organization for Cooperation and Development (OECD) and those of the developing world with respect to the interrelated issues of demographics, labour-force levels and opportunities for a genuine new skills trade. Declining population rates and ageing, with the concomitant declining labour supply and increased dependency ratios in developed countries, are a perfect match for the ample, fastgrowing, young populations and workforces in developing countries, at least over the next 20 years. Elderly persons in developed countries account for 21 per cent of the population. At the global level, the total dependency ratio will increase after the year 2025 because of an expanding population of old people coupled with a population of children that will stop growing. An ageing population could take a toll on the economy: efforts have to be made to maintain or boost labour productivity, and in particular, to stem the fall in labour supply.
13. Labour shortages in developed countries are either already evident or emerging and projected in several sectors across their economies. Extant and potential surpluses in developing countries at all skill levels in key sectors are increasing, available and mobile to fill the labour demand gap. In the United States' information technology sector alone, there is likely to be a skills shortage of 10 million by 2010. There has also been a steady increase in the demand for other low-skill, labour-intensive services such as in construction, agriculture and caring services. On the other hand, developing countries are gearing up with the considerable supply response to meet these skills shortages and to position themselves in the skills market. In nursing services, the Philippines and several countries in Africa and South Asia have tapped developed and other developing country markets for health services. The Philippines, for instance, has responded to the growing global demand for nurses by producing more nurses. It is estimated that Philippines nursing schools produce about 20,000 graduates per year. Of 177,000 Philippine nurses, 85 per cent are estimated to be working overseas. Studies show that 19 of the top 20 Indian software businesses are founded or managed by professionals from the Indian diaspora. Indian migrants, particularly those in the United States, have made significant contributions abroad to the recent growth of the Indian software industry, not only by transferring knowledge and technology but also by opening up new markets for Indian products and services.
14. The Philippines is also the largest supplier of seafarers, capturing 28.5 per cent of the total maritime population (180,000 of 632,000). Workers from Latin America, notably Mexico, provide the United States with a steady supply of seasonal agricultural workers. This rise in demand will not be confined to high- and lowskilled jobs. An interesting prediction is that there will be an incremental growth in demand in what is referred to as hard-core nontradables, that is, services (nontradables) that do not require high skills and cannot be outsourced. This demand will arise as a result of increased productivity, rising incomes, aging populations and the globalization of manufacturing. It would essentially mean that in addition to the need for trained nurses, computer engineers and doctors, there will also be a need for janitors, cashiers, home-health aids and fast-food workers.
15. Labour shortages in developing countries. It is also true that in the short run, certain sectors and types of skill levels in developing countries, especially in Asia, are expected to experience skilled-labour shortages due to the emigration of their labour force in a newer direction: North– North (EU-10 to EU-15) and South–North (Asia and Africa to OECD countries). This is more likely to happen in specific categories such as healthcare, professional services and information and communication technology. Another marked demographic development, specifically in East Europe, relates to the rising average age of those left behind. By 2025 it is estimated that between one fifth and one quarter of the population in Eastern Europe will be 65 and older. This aging population, which is accompanied by falling birth rates and a shrinking tax base, is likely to have a negative economy-wide impact.
16. Advances in transport, telecommunications, and information and communication technology are opening up new 14 ways of integrating and moving labour and allowing easier access to cost-quality competitive labour worldwide. Now, not only does labour move, but investors also come to competitive labour pools – through outsourcing and offshoring, for example. In addition, the use of information technology-enabled remote services and foreign direct investment in labour-intensive manufacturing and services is shifting from highwage economies to lower wage ones. Even in agriculture this trend is evident. For example, American farming interests are shifting to Mexico and Mexican labour after recent restrictions were introduced in the United States.11 In addition, a growing demand for research and development services and the fungibility of scientific and technological manpower across borders also provide new avenues for labour mobility with industry and enterprises in developed countries becoming strong advocates of imported talent to maintain and enhance the competitive, technological and innovative edge of their firms and economies. Technology companies in the United States such as Microsoft, IBM and Intel; and research and development institutions and universities have been campaigning to open and increase the visa caps to accommodate a much larger number of scientific and technical personnel from developing countries which they claim is necessary if the United States is to maintain its technological leadership in trade and in the global economy.
17. In certain sectors, the physical proximity and presence of labour remains important despite technological advancements in education, health (nursing) and caring services, enhancing rather than minimizing the human factor and therefore enhancing the value added of labour mobility. This results in business and consumers going to labour and demanding that labour come to them. It also fits in with the growing tendency of global enterprises to be footloose as they seek new areas for investments – geographically and productwise – and cost–quality, competitive labour. Emerging economies too are deploying capital and leading production and services activities in some areas availing of developed country labour. Similarly, consumers and citizens in developed countries are demanding and making use of foreign labour to meet their essential needs and offset shortages in critical areas. This is particularly true in relation to education and health. As populations age and more and more women join the workforce in white-collar jobs, caring for children and the elderly in Europe and the United States is increasingly in demand and progressively met by foreign labour, particularly from developing countries.
18. Productivity and wage differentials between sending and receiving countries are one of the prime drivers of labour mobility. The real wage gap between sending and receiving countries particularly as far as unskilled labour is concerned is much larger today than it has been in the past, sometimes as high as 10 to 1. This creates an even greater pressure for migration to occur. For software programmers for instance, it has been estimated that the current wage differential between professionals in Chinese home-based industries involved in information technology outsourcing and business process outsourcing and those in the United States is about 88 per cent. To mention a few other examples, software programmers in the United States earn an annual salary of $60,000–$80,000, $5,000–$8,000 in Poland and Hungary, $6,500 in the Philippines and $6,000–$11,000 in India. In the least developed countries where the rate of skilled out-migration is highest at 13 per cent, it has been estimated that the wage differential in respect of skilled professionals between the least developed countries and the United States is as large as 1 to 20. Productivity and wage differentials are and will continue to be very significant between developed and developing countries. They are also not inconsiderable between developed and transition economies, 17 even among developing countries themselves and across different productive sectors. There seems to be a trend towards increased and active outmigration of labour from all groups of countries covering all skill levels, including among developed countries themselves, depending on wage differentials and facility of access. In some cases, there is even a cascading effect with labour from the medium-wage countries as new members of the European Union and transition economies move to the highest wage countries – the EU-15 – and the United States and Canada face labour shortages in high- and medium-skill sectors and turn to lower-wage developing countries such as India and China to fill the manpower gap. Further, higher-wage and middleincome developing countries attract and turn to labour from the lowest-wage developing and least developed countries, particularly in neighbouring areas.
19. It is clear that the key to maintaining and building competitiveness in the global economy will lie in innovation. Innovation in turn presupposes the existence of a meritocracy that attracts and maintains the best human talent and skills. If countries wish to achieve pre-eminence in innovation or competitiveness, they must foster a creative environment at home, invest in potential talent and be open to talent from around 18 the world. According to statistics provided in 2007 by European Union Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini, the United States, which has followed a relatively welcoming policy to attract global talent, currently attracts 55 per cent of all skilled migrants, whereas Europe attracts only 5 per cent. However, author Richard Florida argues that the United States is losing the race to attract talent to countries such as Finland, Ireland, Canada and Australia, which invest heavily in their universities and research centres and actively seek to nurture creativity through open immigration and urban planning. Florida's Global Creativity Index ranks the United States fourth out of 45 countries behind Sweden, Japan and Finland.
20. Overall, the areas of global interdependence and complementarities, especially between OECD and developing country labour and capital, are manifold and growing. In addition, there is a similar 19 progressively growing South–South segment of this complementarity. This points to an ever increasing mutually beneficial skills trade and common labour global pool in agriculture, manufacturing and services. Yet, the difference in labour market integration and goods- and financial-market-related integration is stark. Today, thanks to autonomous, multilateral and regional trade liberalization, tariffs have come down to their lowest levels in both the developed and developing countries. Multinational corporations have spread their production and distribution networks across the developed and developing world and spawned innumerable global products. The information and communication technology revolution has led to the democratization of technologies and spread of ideas and global culture often purveyed by dominant commercial enterprises. Financial markets are also increasingly becoming integrated, for example, banking, insurance, foreign direct investment and stock exchanges. Labour mobility, on the other hand, remains considerably hampered by State-erected barriers – they may be immigration-related, technical or procedural barriers, often driven by job displacement-related protectionism, cultural bias and political and security considerations.
B. Barriers to labour mobility
21. Despite the increase in real demand for foreign workers in a significant number of developed and more advanced developing countries, barriers to entry continue to exist, with areas such as the United States and the European Union enforcing stricter entry policies rather than relaxing them. Examples of barriers include the following: numerical and skills-based quotas, economic and labour market test requirements, difficulties in obtaining recognition for diplomas and competencies acquired outside the destination country, non-portability of social security benefits, linguistic barriers, residency or citizenship requirements and complex or expensive visa and permit acquisition procedures. Such barriers to labour mobility also exist in among developing countries, but often migrants are able to circumvent them.
22. In addition to these entry barriers, foreign workers, once allowed in, may also be subjected to a host of other challenges such as abuse of terms and conditions of employment, for example, lower wages than for local staff doing the same job; underemployment, or overqualification; absence of social security protection, including pension and medical insurance subsidies; and for some workers, vulnerability to harassment and sexual abuse.
23. Despite these limitations and restrictions, the push-pull factors to migrate prevail, leading to increased migration to destination countries. With political and security concerns amplifying since the 9/11 incident, the United States, member States of the European Union and other receiving countries have, in general, adopted harsher entry requirements but have allowed for special arrangements, particularly on a bilateral and regional basis, for some understaffed occupations. They have also resorted to temporary labour arrangements or seasonal movements, generally seen as less threatening to constituencies of receiving countries, although employers prefer continuity rather than the prospect of retraining workers on a regular basis. More recently the European Union justice commissioner advocated the creation of a bluecard system for skilled immigrants, modelled on the American green card.
C. Labour integration: definition and dilemmas
24. Labour integration and skills trade means that there is greater cross-border labour mobility in regions and throughout the world between sending and receiving countries, particularly in regions that require labour at specific skill levels at prices and in quantities which cannot adequately be provided by local labour. This mobility may be temporary of a more permanent nature. Labour integration encompasses agriculture, manufacturing and services; the concentration of foreign labour may differ from sector to sector, depending on local skills availability and the value-added of foreign labour. It also depends on historical, political, linguistic and cultural linkages and on the geographical proximity of the host and home countries involved. For example, there is a growing utilization of Latin American agricultural workers in United States farming; of Indian information technology professionals in information and communications technology; of Philippine nurses in health care and of Jamaican teachers in education. This illustrates both the value of local human labour in certain sectors while making for mobility of labour and skills within and across national borders necessary in that context because of shortages in receiving countries. Labour integration is also spurred by what has been described as a massive cultural change in the human significance of work, with traditional industries giving way to hi-tech, skills giving way to mechanization, manufacturing giving way to information and economic nationalism giving way to globalization.
25. The concept of labour integration in most literature is limited to the movement of people from the country of origin to the destination country. However, this paper suggests that a broader definition of labour integration and skills trade is also relevant, given the emerging contours of a global labour market. It is estimated that approximately one billion workers will enter the global workforce in the next decade, virtually all from the developing world. Labour integration does not only mean movement of labour from one country to another, but also the ability of business and consumers to access this global pool of labour in different ways through physical movement or otherwise, in an effort to achieve economic efficiency.
26. Labour integration can also refer to labour used by foreign enterprises in their production of goods and services for local, regional or global supply through the establishment of commercial presence in developing countries (Mode 3 of services or foreign direct investment and joint venture) for profit maximization and cost– quality, competitive labour. Some examples include American investments in the Asian and Chinese manufacturing sectors, including textiles and clothing; German investments in the South- and East-Asian auto sector, Japanese investments in the United States, investments by the European Union in the auto and electronic sectors and the US investments in the Mexican farm sector. This is because the labour component remains crucial, despite the proportionate increase in the importance of technology and automation in production processes and trade. Labour integration can also be achieved through Mode 1. For example, United States firms are turning to information technology professionals in India to provide information technology-enabled services or remote services, outsourcing business and knowledge processes. In the context of intra-firm transactions and intra-industry trade for instance, it is not uncommon to have multinational work teams operating virtually on different continents as if they were in the same workplace as part of 24-hour knowledge factories.
27. There is also an increased tendency for consumers to go directly to labour in other countries (Mode 2) in order to obtain services in different areas according to the competitive advantage of the labour force and skill levels, apart from consuming other services. Sectors offering a comparative advantage for developing countries include tourism, education, health and recreational services. In developed countries, exporting educational services is now very profitable and consumers in developing countries are flocking to take advantage of this.
28. All this points to the emergence of a national, regional, continental and global labour force and skills markets as a hallmark of the latest phase of globalization and capitalism. Developing countries and their labour force are to a greater or lesser extent becoming effective parts of a global labour market in many sectors. The extent of each developing country's labour force being integrated into global production and value chains depends on the quantity and quality of that county's integration into the global economy through trade, investment, skills and technology transfer and the quantity, quality , adaptability and renewability of its labour force.
29. However, while globalization has spurred the movement of capital, goods and information, liberalization of the movement of people has remained heavily regulated, notwithstanding the fact that market conditions have demonstrated the increasing need of host countries for foreign workers, particularly in sectors such as healthrelated, education, computer-technology and other professional services. While this demand is matched by the increasing capability of developing countries to provide such services, legal and procedural restrictions and political sensitivities in the host countries have impeded the free movement of people across borders. Protectionism also pervades other areas where developing countries are gaining a foothold: outsourcing information-technology-enabled services, for example, has increasingly benefited developing countries such as India, China, the Philippines, Ghana, Bangladesh, Uruguay, Costa Rica and some Caribbean countries.
30. Today, job-related insecurity in developed countries has given rise to different forms of protectionism in relation to trade with and investments to and from developing countries. This is over and above concerns about foreign workers in these countries displacing local workers. There are increasing fears about the socalled export of jobs from developed to developing countries and delocalization of industry and consequently, jobs. The exodus of low-skilled and blue-collar jobs caused by multinational corporations of developed countries having shifted their manufacturing operations to developing countries, particularly in the 1990s, has resulted in the flight of higher-skilled and white-collar jobs to developing countries. At the outset, manufacturing jobs were seen to be taken by developing countries, especially in textiles, electronics and auto manufacturing with the developed country workforces moving to either higher-end manufacturing or to the services and technology sectors. Now, with the offshore outsourcing of services, especially informationtechology- enabled services that include research and development services, there has been an outcry against the alleged migration of even these 27 white-collar jobs overseas. The concern seems to be not only about relatively low-skilled services jobs being lost to foreign workers but also higher-end service jobs in research and development, finance and high-tech as developing country workers climb up the skills ladder. This concern manifests itself in attempts to block or limit foreign labour in developedcountry markets and to target foreign (often developing country) goods and services on account of the so-called low-cost labour advantage they are said to enjoy.
31. As a result, labour market integration and cross-border movements of labour suffer from seven inconsistencies that hamper their full contribution as an essential component of globalization in the development of developing countries:
(a) First, there is incoherence in the fact that cost-quality-competitive labour is one of the strongest factor endowments and a traditional comparative advantage of most developing countries. Yet this is largely being left out from the ambit of trade liberalization both at the multilateral and regional levels. This can considerably affect the openness, predictability and non-discriminatory nature and equity of the multilateral trading system as expressed in the United Nations Millennium Declaration and the 2005 World Summit Outcome.
(b) Second, there is an inconsistency between market realities and labour flows on the ground and international governance frameworks. This can be clearly observed in terms of supply meeting growing labour market demands on the one hand, and on formal international agreements and frameworks for the liberalization and facilitation of labour flows remaining restrictive on the other. Using the analogy of tariffs and applied bound-tariff rates, there is "water" between multilaterally committed labour quotas for foreigners and legal entrants and between legal foreign workers and illegal migrant workers. If the former gap were closed with greater liberalization at multilaterally committed levels, this could be an antidote to black-market labour and help avoid attendant problems for sending and receiving countries.
(c) Third, there is a disconnect between political populism against labour integration in policy discourse at national and international levels and the recognition of considerable direct and indirect, short-, medium- and long-term socio-economic, welfare and efficiency gains for all economies concerned. The danger of the resultant protectionism lies in reversing the gains of trade and investment liberalization for development, harming the economies of developing and developed countries alike. Hence a purposive campaign is needed in response to 29 this neo-protectionism against the tradability of labour in particular and labour integration as a factor of globalization in general. International efforts undertaken particularly within international bodies should be taken forward to reach objective and mutually acceptable solutions.
(d) Fourth, there is, ironically, a growing perception of a gap between corporate and labour interests in the context of labour mobility and integration. Corporate interest favours greater mobility of labour, whereas domestic labour takes a more cautious stance. In reality, economy-wide interests and benefits point to a convergence of these interests, in, for example, net job creation and savings, the generation of new consumers and markets, and additional purchasing power in sending and receiving countries. This misperception needs to be corrected, particularly in developed countries.
(e) Fifth, while labour integration is an important component of goods, finance, entrepreneurship and information-related trade, freer movement of labour is continually being resisted. This is counterproductive for all concerned: despite the technological information revolution, labour will continue to be an important factor of production and competitiveness of enterprises and economies in developed and developing countries.
(f) Sixth, there is a global hunt for talent. The race to get the best minds to drive and establish the global competitiveness of research institutions and productive sectors is proceeding apace. Bright scientists, technologists, engineers, financial experts and managers are highly sought. Nonetheless, the protectionist reflexes are unrelenting. Industry lobbies, corporate bodies and universities in developed countries have had to impress upon their governments the need to liberalize the inflow of talent into their economies if they are to preserve their competitive edge, and developing country governments are also pushing at the multilateral, regional and bilateral levels.
(g) Seventh and most ironically, the costs and benefits of labour integration and globalization are poorly understood. All countries – developed and developing countries alike – may well be poised on the threshold of the most win-win, inclusive and pro-poor phase of globalization through labour market integration and not realize it. Belief and fears to the contrary, and regrettably, sections in those developed countries which had thus far advocated the virtues of goods and finance-related globalization to developing countries are now seeing labour movement liberalization as the last frontier. If crossed, this frontier will somehow dilute and reverse the impact of what has heretofore been a largely beneficial globalization for them. This paper will demonstrate some of the costs and benefits arising from labour integration, particularly for receiving countries.
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