Number of international migrant workers rises to 169 million, says ILO

As per the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, some 121 million jobs were lost in India in April 2020.

The number of international migrant workers has risen globally to 169 million, an increase of three percent since 2017, as per a report by the International Labour Organisation.

In 2017, the number of international migrant workers stood at 164 million which has risen by 5 million to 169 million in 2019.

There has also been a 2 percent increase in the share of youth migrant workers (aged 15-24) since 2017. Their number reached 16.8 million in 2019, up 3.2 million, the report stated.

According to the 2019 report by ILO, international migrant workers constituted nearly five percent of the global labour force yet many migrant workers are often in temporary, informal or unprotected jobs, which exposes them to a greater risk of insecurity and layoffs.

The COVID-19  pandemic has only intensified the vulnerabilities of the migrant workers particularly the women migrant workers as they are over-represented in low-paid and low-skilled jobs and have limited access to social protection and fewer options for support services, said the report.

“The pandemic has exposed the precariousness of their situation. Migrant workers are often first to be laid off, they experience difficulties in accessing treatment and they are often excluded from national COVID-19 policy responses,” said Manuela Tomei, Director of the ILO Conditions of Work and Equality Department.

As per the report, international migrant workers are concentrated in high-income countries.

"The Arab States, and Asia and the Pacific each host about 24 million migrant workers, which, in total, correspond to 28.5 percent of all migrant workers. In Africa there are 13.7 million migrant workers, representing 8.1 percent of the total," as per the report.

According to the report, 66.2 percent of migrant workers are in services, 26.7 percent in industry and 7.1 percent in agriculture.

The share of youth among international migrant workers has increased, from 8.3 percent in 2017 to 10 percent in 2019. This increase is likely to be related to high youth unemployment rates in many developing countries, ILO pointed out.

India is said to be the worst impacted country due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As per the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), some 121 million jobs were lost in India in April 2020, the highest ever monthly job loss on record since it started compiling employment data.

Out of the 121 million jobs lost, some 91 million were daily wage labourers and workers in the unorganised sector, CMIE had estimated. In April 2020, the unemployment rate touched a record high of 23.52 percent, dropped to 21.73 percent in May 2020 and 10.18 percent in June 2020, it said.

As per CMIE, during May 2020 when the second wave of the pandemic ravaged the country, over 15 million jobs were lost during May 2021.

"Employment fell from 390.8 million in April 2021 to 375.5 million in May 2021. This translates into a loss of 15.3 million jobs, or a 3.9 percent fall in employment in the month," CMIE said in its report.

Earlier this year, the Labour Standing Committee of the Parliament had recommended that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) should be extended to interstate migrant workers in order to provide sustainable livelihood to them.

The committee also urged the Centre to put in place a credible database of unorganised workers, especially migrant labourers, to ensure seamless delivery of relief packages to them at the time of distress.

The government had informed the panel that as on July 9, 2020, as many as 86,14,785 migrant workers returned home and 1,90,054 migrant workers stayed back.

In light of the recommendations made by the parliamentary committee, the Labour Bureau, an attached office of the Ministry of Labour and Employment, is conducting the five All India Surveys on labour.

In March, the government had flagged off the field on two of the five All India Surveys which included All India Surveys on Migrant Workers.