NEW YORK - As the financial meltdown spreads to the far corners of the globe, one of its biggest casualties is international migration. The global recession is taking a heavy toll on migrants, and consequently, on migrant earnings, one of the most lucrative sources of foreign exchange in the developing world.
The Middle East, particularly the Gulf, has been hit with a double whammy: first, the precipitous decline in oil prices, and second, the global economic crisis which has reached out from Wall Street in New York to the monstrous skyscraper offices that have sprouted in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Dhahran and Kuwait City.
In the Gulf, the boom times in Dubai, one of the fastest-growing sheikdoms of the United Arab Emirates, are virtually over. The New York Times reported recently that more than 3,000 cars, including a few Mercedes Benzes, BMW's and Porsches, have been abandoned at the Dubai international airport by expatriates fleeing the country after losing their jobs.
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| Migrant workers in Dubai |
"Every day we find more and more cars. Christmas was the worst. We found more than two dozen (abandoned cars) on a single day," an airport official was quoted as saying. But those abandoning the country and their cars are mostly professionals and semi professionals. "Dubai is emptying out," says one Western diplomat.
According to one report, more than 1,500 visas are being cancelled every day in Dubai, which has about 3.6 million expatriates and only 864,000 nationals. The recession has also resulted in a 50 percent decline in the price of luxury apartments and a 25 percent reduction in luxury spending by expatriates, mostly bankers, engineers, accountants and other executives.
The number of British expatriates in Dubai alone has been estimated at more than 100,000, where the real estate market has collapsed and building construction come to a standstill.. But the bigger picture worldwide is even worse.
A recent World Bank study reveals that migrant earnings to developing countries will decline from $305 billion in 2008 to $290 billion in 2009. The fall in remittances has already been recorded in several countries, including Morocco, the Philippines and Sri Lanka. In Latin America and the Caribbean, resource flows from the US alone have dropped by 71 percent.
Besides the economic crisis, there are other reasons for the decline in earnings, including the sharp fluctuations in exchange rates. The study says that migrants may also be more reluctant to send money through formal channels due to a lack of confidence in the stability of the international banking system which has taken a heavy beating.
The ongoing crisis -- along with the spread of xenophobia -- is prompting some of the rich countries to cut down on immigration and place restrictions on the hiring of foreign workers. The Geneva-based International Organisation for Migration (IOM) warns that cutting immigration to combat the economic crisis will only make the situation worse and have a devastating impact on developing nations.
In contrast to most high paying professionals, the unskilled and semi-skilled workers are mostly from developing nations. And when they are laid off in their thousands, they are forced to trek back home with potentially disastrous consequences triggering more unemployment and also depriving these countries of a steady source of foreign exchange from remittances.
According to IOM, migrants are not only returning from the Gulf states to their home countries, such as India, the Philippines and Sri Lanka, but also from Malaysia to Indonesia. In Malaysia, there is also evidence of policies to speed up the deportation of irregular migrants who have lived and worked in the country illegally. The Malaysian government has reportedly cancelled work visas for some 55,000 Bangladeshi workers.
Faced with their own domestic economic crises, several Western states are also imposing new conditions on migrant labour. Britain has introduced a points-based system favouring "high-skilled" migrants even raising academic qualifications. Australia has reduced its intake: from 133,500 to 115,000. Spain has introduced new incentives for migrants to return to their home countries. A provision in the stimulus package in the US makes it more difficult for American companies to hire skilled foreign workers.
Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration points out that labour migration is an integral part of today's globalized world. Even during this economic downturn, one simply cannot wish migration away. The current financial crisis, he says, is having a negative impact on perceptions of migrants and migration worldwide.
Chauzy said special attention must therefore be paid to ensure that migrants, who are particularly prone to stigmatization at best of times, are adequately protected from xenophobia and discrimination in the employment sector and in all social spheres. Cooperation between countries of origin and destination is today more than ever needed to mitigate the impact of the crisis on the fragile economies of countries of the south. This could be done by increasing levels of official development assistance (ODA), from the rich to the poor.
"Slamming the door shut to labour migration will only push more undocumented migrants in the hands of people smugglers and traffickers and will make undocumented migrants even more vulnerable in countries of destination," he warned. | 
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