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A migrant worker is a person who migrates within a home country or outside it to pursue work. Migrant workers usually do not have an intention to stay permanently in the country or region in which they work.[1]
Migrant workers who work outside their home country are also called foreign workers. They may also be called expatriates or guest workers, especially when they have been sent for or invited to work in the host country before leaving the home country.
The International Labour Organization estimated in 2019 that there were 169 million international migrants worldwide.[2] Some countries have millions of migrant workers. Some migrant workers are undocumented immigrants or slaves.
Definition
The International Organization for Migration's Global Migration Data Analysis Centre states that "there is no internationally accepted statistical definition of labour migration", but refers to the International Labour Organization (ILO)'s definition: "international migrants who are currently employed or unemployed and seeking employment in their present country of residence".[2]
Worldwide
An estimated 14 million foreign workers live in the United States, which draws most of its immigrants from Mexico, including 4 or 5 million undocumented workers. It is estimated that around 5 million foreign workers live in northwestern Europe, half-a-million in Japan, and 5 million in Saudi Arabia. A comparable number of dependents are accompanying international workers.[3]
Americas
United States
There are approximately 14 million non-permanent workers in the United States. Today it is estimated that there are about 10.7 million undocumented migrant workers in the United States, many of whom come from Mexico and other countries in Central America. These workers often travel to the United States to look for occupational opportunities and to provide economic stability for their families.[4] These workers risk their lives to cross the border - facing extreme heat and the risk of being caught by border control to find jobs in the United States, often facing language barriers, cultural shock, stigma, and discrimination upon reaching the United States. In the United States 65% of farm workers are Latino, with about half of the workers being undocumented.[5]
The jobs available to undocumented migrant workers in America are often in the domestic, industrial and agricultural field. These jobs are often physically demanding and are often dangerous. All of these workers are exposed to fast paces, and repetitive motions at work which can easily lead to injury. In the domestic field many, often female, migrant workers are subject to physically demeaning cleaning jobs that involve harsh chemical cleaners that have adverse health effects. Industrial workers often have to use heavy machinery without proper training or safety protocols.[6] In the agricultural field, the workers spend long days doing intense physical labor often in extreme weather conditions such as storms and heat. The workers are also exposed to unsafe levels of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers,[7][8] which can lead to respiratory illness, dermatitis, cancer, and reproductive problems. If these workers do get injured or sick from work, they are left to navigate the American healthcare system without insurance and with a language barrier. The undocumented nature of many migrant workers in the United States leads to the exploitation of the population as a whole. The lack of government regulation of employers that hire migrant workers means that the workers work long hours in adverse conditions for little pay. These workers often live in unsafe living conditions that are overcrowded and often unsanitary. Additionally, they are at constant risk of sudden deportation, which leads to migrant workers accepting poor working conditions and unlivable wages from their employers. This leads to employers exploiting migrant workers by subjecting them to unhealthy working conditions for poverty wages. Socially, migrant workers face social stigma and discrimination as they are referred to as "illegal migrants".[4]
Additionally migrant workers are one of the most vulnerable groups in regards to the impending climate crisis. These workers are already exposed to long work days in extreme conditions. The nature of agricultural work, industrial, and construction work puts these migrant workers at higher rates of heat stroke, sun exposure, and injuries caused by storm conditions. The climate crisis will disproportionately affect migrant workers because of the intensive outdoor nature of their work and the lack of access they have to social resources.[6][7][4]
Canada
Foreign nationals are admitted into Canada on a temporary basis if they have a work permit, study permit, are seeking asylum, or under special permits. Migrant workers generally enter as work permit holders under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) or the International Mobility Program (IMP); the key distinction between the programs being the requirement for Canadian employers to obtain a positive or neutral labour market impact assessment (under the TFWP) or an exemption from this process (IMP). Most work permits (~70%) issued in 2018 were under the IMP. Around 495,000 work permits were issued in 2018, while closer to 328,000 were issued in 2008, representing an increase of over 50 percent over the decade. All work authorizations under the TFWP are granted by the issuance of work permits conditional to one employer and job offer, also called "employer-specific" or "closed" work permits. The IMP facilitates both employer-specific and open work permits, as well as work permit exemptions. Open work permits allow migrant workers to change employers, with limited exceptions.[9] With respect to the difference in volumes and admissions of permanent immigrants (i.e., those who have the right to reside permanently) and migrant workers, in 2008, the intake of non-permanent immigrants, had overtaken the intake of permanent immigrants (247,243).[10] The contributions that migrant workers make in Canada are diverse and significant as they work in a wide range of occupations - harvesting fruits and vegetables, caring for children and the elderly, driving long-haul transport trucks, as well as working in IT, academica and medicine.
Since the 1960s, farmers in Ontario and other provinces have been meeting some of their seasonal labour needs by hiring temporary workers from Caribbean countries and, since 1974, from Mexico under the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (CSAWP).[11][12] This federal initiative allows for the organized entry into Canada of low- to mid-level skilled farm workers for up to eight months a year to fill labour shortages on Canadian farms during peak periods of planting, cultivating, and harvesting of specified farm commodities. The program is run jointly with the governments of Mexico and the participating Caribbean states, which recruit the workers and appoint representatives in Canada to assist in the program's operations.[13]
Non-agricultural companies in Canada have begun to recruit under the temporary foreign worker program since Service Canada's 2002 expansion of an immigration program for migrant workers.
In 2002, the federal government introduced the Low Skill Pilot Project to allow companies to apply to bring in temporary foreign workers to fill low skill jobs. The classification of "low skill" means that workers require no more than high school or two years of job-specific training to qualify.
Latin America
Immigrants often take any available job, often in the fields. The work often consists of hard manual labour, often with unfair pay. The article "Migrant Farmworkers: Is government doing enough to protect them?" by William Triplett states that the median annual income was $7,500, and 61% had income below the poverty level. After losing their cultural identity immigrants try to find a way to feed their families, and may end up being exploited. Triplett also notes that since 1989, "their average real hourly wages (in 1998 dollars) had dropped from $6.89 to $6.18", and that immigrants suffer physical as well as economic exploitation in the work place.[14]
Asia
In Asia, some countries in East and Southeast Asia offer workers. Their destinations include Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Brunei and Malaysia.
