Soaring migration cost major challenge in foreign employment in South Asia

KATHMANDU, July 27: Despite being a thriving sector, soaring migration cost has become the biggest challenge in foreign employment sector among South Asian nations. [break]



Worse, increasing competition among South Asian laborers has further pushed down the wage rates in labor destinations.



“Migration cost is getting higher as job seekers have to go through many agents and intermediaries. We can reduce the cost by introducing proper mechanism,” said Dr Ganesh Gurung, migration expert, at a Regional Consultative Process on Labor Migration from South Asia, held here on Sunday.



Gurung suggested increasing linkage between Nepali agents and employing companies to reduce the migration cost.



“Joint SAARC bargaining mechanism on minimum wage and benefits should also be established to ensure better pay and collective labor migration for South Asian workers in the labor market,” Gurung said, while presenting Nepal´s foreign employment status in the program. He suggested involving recruiting agents in policy making process and effective monitoring from the government to check rampant cheating of jobseekers.



Presenting the Indian experience, Prof S Irudaya Rajan from Indian Affairs Research on International Migration, Union Ministry of Overseas, stressed on the need to fix a minimum standard of salary for South Asian migrant workers so as to minimize chance of wage reduction due to competition. Rajan stated that the cost of migration in India had increased to Rs 56,842 in 2008, up by Rs 13,000 a decade ago.



He also said the employers in the Gulf countries were paying a commission of $100 to 150 to South Asian agents for arranging a migrant worker. “However, greedy South Asian manpower agents collect large sum from the prospective jobseekers and send the employers poor quality workers,” said Rajan.



He explained that employers had to change contracts of the workers and reduce their promised salaries due to the poor quality of workers from South Asia. “We should bring an end to such problems,” he added.



Shyama Nanda Suman, former Nepali ambassador to Qatar, said increasing layers of recruiting agents from country of origin to recipient countries was the key factor behind the soaring migration cost. “We can reduce recruiting cost by 90 percent, if not achieve zero cost of migration for prospective jobseekers,” he added.



Amid a growing exploitation of Nepali workers in overseas countries, South Asian migration experts have suggested forming a regional joint mechanism to fix minimum wage for labor destinations.

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