A special report commissioned by the BBC World Service has found that the global recession has had a marked effect on international migration. Fewer people are moving abroad for work but those who are already abroad are, for the most part staying put. The research was done for the BBC by the Migration Policy Institute, an independent agency in Washington.
Migrant workers are more at risk of losing their jobs than native workers as they often work in industries especially exposed to the recession. But despite the loss of income many face, in most cases there has not been a large-scale return home. This may reflect the fact that, for many migrants, economic conditions are even worse at home.
There are some striking exceptions to these patterns, however. Poorer employment prospects have discouraged potential migrants from moving to the UK aswell as draw earlier migrants back home. Many economic migrants from central and eastern Europe who came to work in the UK are returning home where economic conditions have not deteriorated as much.
The EU expansion led to 1.4m east Europeans moving to the UK up to 2008, the report suggests about half of those migrants have now left.
To read the full report click here
Recent research from the CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) has shown that UK employers are continuing to recruit overseas workers. Their latest Labour Market Outlook (LMO) showed that 8% of employers planned to recruit overseas workers in the next 3 months. However this represents a drop of more than two-thirds compared with the autumn 2005 CIPD LMO report, where 27% of employers said that they were planning to hire migrant workers in the following three months.
The current report reveals some large variations across sectors. Forty-one per cent of employers in the hotels, catring and leisure sector will be recruiting migrant workers in the next three months. Meanwhile, more than one in five employers in the education sector and in the NHS will be recruiting migrant workers in the same period.
There is some evidence that employers surveyed turn to migrant workers to ease difficulties in filling jobs with British workers. More than a quarter (27%) of employers say they recruit migrants to fill jobs for which it proves difficult to find British workers. This view is held more strongly in the private sector. Three in ten (32%) firms turn to migrants because they find it difficult to fill vacancies with British workers. Forty-three per cent of NHS employers and 28% of education bodies give the same reason for overseas recruitment.
To read the full labour market overview report click here
